


Pray Unto The Splinters

by weeping00willow



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Case Fic, First Time, M/M, Time Travel, older!Sam/younger!Dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-25
Updated: 2012-10-25
Packaged: 2017-11-17 00:59:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 31,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/545765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weeping00willow/pseuds/weeping00willow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Still on the trail of Pestilence and running from both the Devil and Heaven's Host, Sam gets transported 15 years back in time and sucked into a case that seems to hold more than meets the eye.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pray Unto The Splinters

There is a rage inside of him. Has been with him for such a long time that he can hardly remember ever having existed without this perpetual slow burn that eats at him every single day, that tears at his last threads of sanity each and every night. Intellectually, he knows he used to have dreams once upon a time, that he’d hoped he could find happiness on his own, as if through sheer bullheadedness he could rewrite the path that others had laid in front of him and make a life for himself. How wrong had he been, how stupid and proud to believe he was free, if only for just a moment. How much it hurts now to see that illusion shattered and this last haven of memory tarnished.

Brady’s taunts still echoing through his mind, Sam takes another pull from the cigarette and bangs his head against the outer wall of the latest shithole motel they’re staying in tonight. Dean would probably bitch at him about it, if he weren’t currently out drinking or fucking himself into oblivion, having left without a word right after they checked in. Sam knows he should have at least asked where he was going, but he can’t bring himself to care right now. He is angry at the bastard demon who so candidly revealed that every choice Sam has ever made was just another string pulled to lead him like a frigging puppet down the road to hell, that even his beautiful Jess was just a trap laid out for him to keep him in check. How much further does the illusion of free will actually spread? Are there any decisions he’s made back then actually his? He can’t help but retrace every step and second guess it now, looking for the threads of deception and deceit. 

The truth is, he has nothing left to call his own. Not even his memories. And it would hurt so fucking much if he allowed it to sink in, but he’ll hold on to the hate for now and build upon it. It sure as hell beats the alternative. 

The phone ringing in his back pocket takes him by surprise. With a puzzled frown at the caller ID, he hits accept and presses it to his ear.

“Chuck?” he inquires, all the while thinking _‘What now?’_.

“Sam!” the prophet’s voice sounds urgent. “Thank God! I couldn’t reach your phone earlier…”

“This had better be good, Chuck,” Sam groans as he pulls another smoke from his cigarette. “I’m really not in the mood for more Apocalypse crap thrown at us again…”

“This is important, Sam, just listen to me!” Chuck snaps. “Something is coming, something big, you should get out of there right the fuck now!”

“What?” Sam immediately straightens himself. “What did you see?”

“That’s just it! I couldn’t see it, something is deliberately clouding my visions, and I can’t even think of what could be powerful enough to do that! But it’s all focused on you, and it’s going down tonight!”

“You mean, on me, specifically?” Sam’s mind whirls. “Is it Lucifer? Did he find out where I am?”

“Could be, I don’t freaking know! Just get away from there before…”

But Sam can’t hear any more. Suddenly, he feels as if his body is being sucked through a whirlpool and stretched past the boundaries of his skin, the ground being swooped from under his feet. He has a second of déjà-vu, before his brain stutters to a halt and everything goes black.

~

When he finally comes around, Sam feels like somebody just tried to pound his brains out with a sledgehammer. He tries to move his limbs and only then registers that he is lying on the hard ground and that a rock has apparently decided to lodge itself into his left kidney. Upon opening his eyes, he sees a thick canopy of leaves hanging above his head, interspersed with patches of clear blue sky, and the cell phone clutched in a death grip in the palm of his hand.

 _‘What the hell?’_ his mind tries and fails to kick itself into gear.

He sits up with a groan and looks at the trees around him and it takes only a couple of seconds to remember the motel, Chuck’s frantic phone call and then… Suddenly, all his grogginess vanishes and Sam jumps to his feet. Lucifer! If Lucifer found him… He quickly takes stock of every means of defense he has on him – his Taurus down the back of his pants filled with consecrated bullets, a silver bladed knife in his ankle holster and a mishmash of hex bags and other protective trinkets he usually carries in his jacket pockets – nothing that will put a dent in Satan himself if he decides to show. 

But nothing comes at him, there is no immediate threat that he can see. As a matter of fact, the forest looks kind of… peaceful. _Huh._

Just then, the silence is pierced by a shotgun blast that echoes in the distance. _‘So much for that’_ , Sam thinks and pulls out his gun, ingrained hunter instincts kicking in. Another shot follows, and now that he’s got a lock on the general direction, he starts to sprint towards it, dodging tree roots and hanging branches, not even bothering with stealth anymore. 

It doesn’t take more than a couple of minutes until he stumbles onto a river bank and sees two figures grappling just a few feet away, a man, and a woman dressed in a long green dress that looks rather like moss and algae clinging to her skin. The body of another woman lies slumped on the ground, her head chopped off and rolled to the side and greenish vapors rising from her sizzling skin. 

_‘Oh, shit. Nereids’_ , his memory supplies, still remembering the sketch in Dad’s journal from years ago and his annotations on how to trap and kill the water nymphs before they latch onto you and drain your soul dry. _Decapitation_ , he thinks, and starts to reach for his knife, when the man – hunter, obviously – whirls around and Sam gets a glimpse of his own brother’s face, his brother who looks _ten years younger_ , at the least!

_What. The. Fuck?_

Then he suddenly remembers the odd feeling of being pulled through a meat grinder and pieces together where he’s felt it before. The fucking ‘Angel Express’, when Cas zapped them back in time to find Anna. Sam mentally lets out a string of curses for the entirety of Heaven’s Host and their bullshit, and couldn’t they have chosen a better time to pull a stunt like this? Now what is he supposed to do? He can’t let this past version of his brother see him, or who knows what’s going to happen. His anger starts sizzling again and he grits his teeth in frustration.

Then, in a flash of momentary insight, he remembers a hunt from a couple of years back, when he’d still been hooked up on Ruby’s lies and her blood ( _and doesn’t that just sound like the story of his life, especially now_ ), when Dean had still been… ( _not thinking about that!_ ) and he had to infiltrate a demon lair to find a lead on Lilith’s whereabouts, but without risking recognition. Ruby ( _curse her petty little soul_ ) had given him a shielding charm, a ring that was supposed to hide his true identity from anyone who knew him; they would see his face, but perceive him as a stranger, and it had worked. He still has it in one of his pockets, scrounged from the depths of the Impala’s trunk when he and Dean had been looking for any item that would hide them from Michael and Lucifer, and Sam had stumbled across it and resisted the urge to throw it away as guilt washed over him again for his past betrayal. Now, he quickly pats the inside pocket of his jacket and finds the ring tangled with three other protective amulets, peels it out and shoves it onto his right middle finger (as much a ‘fuck you’ to Ruby’s memory as anything at this point). It doesn’t look like much, just three silver threads whorled into a Celtic knot, but hopefully it will do the trick. He’s not going to mess with the timelines until he gets a grip on the whole situation at first.

A pained cry from Dean ( _past Dean?_ ) tears him away from his funk. His machete and shotgun have been kicked to the side and the Nereid has him by the throat, as he struggles fruitlessly. _Fuck that!_ Sam decides. He’ll mess up the timeline all to hell and back if it means keeping his brother alive.

He pulls out his silver knife and charges the nymph full on, knocking her away from Dean who crumbles to the ground, trying to catch his breath. Still, she gets past her surprise pretty quickly and whirls around to face her new attacker, otherworldly blue eyes blazing on her pale, twisted face. With preternatural speed, the Nereid seems to glide through the air as she dances around Sam, always at the periphery of his vision, and lands blows whenever she gets the chance, managing to nick his right cheek with the sharp nails on her hand. Sam tries to get a hit in with his blade, twisting and dodging with as much grace as he can manage. He spins around trying to predict her next moves, when he suddenly decides to change tactics and stop attempting to catch sight of her. Instead, he stills completely and lets her come to him, just a glimpse in the corner of his eye, there one second and gone the next. As he feels the chill of her breath at the nape of his neck, he swings around lightning fast and manages to cut a deep gash across her throat with his knife. 

The Nereid shrieks as waves of murky water flow from the wound instead of blood, grabs at her neck with her hands and takes a staggering step back. But Sam is on her before she can recover, grabs a fistful of the dark wet locks of the nymph’s hair, bares her throat back and stabs the blade into the gaping wound with all his might, half deafened by her piercing wail, and slashes deeper, deeper, until the head is severed right off and the shrieking has ceased. Panting raggedly, he drops the head next to the body that has already begun to disintegrate in the muck of the river bank.

Then, the oddest thing happens. Suddenly there is the muzzle of a gun cocked and pressed to the back of his head, and his brother’s voice asks coldly:

“Who are you?”

Not as deep or ragged as the older Dean’s voice, but Dean’s nevertheless. Sam guesses he should have expected this. His body zings with leftover adrenaline from the fight, and Sam barely raises the left corner of his mouth in a smirk before he whirls around, knocks the gun from Dean’s hand, then swipes the feet from under him with a kick, sending them both sprawling to the ground. Really, it only takes a couple of seconds to have his brother pinned under him, and the blade of the knife he still carries in his hand inches from Dean’s cheek. Not touching his skin, he doesn’t want to accidentally hurt his brother, but threatening nonetheless.

Dean’s eyes are open in surprise and fear, staring up at him from under those long lashes and barely daring to breathe, waiting for Sam’s next move. God, he doesn’t look a day older than seventeen, just as Sam remembers him, still halfway between being a kid and becoming a man, when that prettiness first began to morph into the sharper, more defined lines of adulthood. How Sam had burned back then, too, even before he had grasped the full extent of what he was feeling. How he had awakened to this awareness of Dean like heat sizzling through his veins, making his skin feel too tight and his limbs too awkward, making his brain stutter and cough like all his synapses had been fried, over and over again. How he stole glances of skin, of that devilish smirk and those fucking sapphire eyes and kept them as treasures in a little box in his mind, a Pandora’s box that opened of its own free will in the dark hours of the night and made him twist in hunger and want, made him ache and strain under the sheets and wake up sticky and boneless, like a rag wringed through the washer. Every fucking night. And how dirty and shameful he would always feel after that. And here he is now, looking up at him with those plush, sinful lips parted, just like in every dream that had plagued him all those years ago, with those freckles that dusted his cheeks and made his mouth run dry with the thirst to lick them. 

God, if this is someone’s idea of a joke, they really got him this time. This makes so little sense, that Sam feels a hysterical laugh trying to bubble up from his chest. But, still, he has been asked a question. He needs to think, to answer… 

“Sam Wesson.” Wow, was that really his voice? All deep and rumbly as if he’d shouted himself hoarse.

“Huh?” Dean asks, a little dazed at the broken silence.

“My name,” Sam explains, trying to get his brain to function once again. “And yours?”

“Dean Winchester,” his brother replies, still not daring to move, but Sam can feel his heart speed up from where their bodies are pressed together, locked in this momentary status quo that zings between them like a string pulled tight, close to its breaking point and waiting to snap. 

“Well, Dean Winchester,” Sam says, and shifts his weight minutely to bring the hand holding the knife closer to Dean’s face.

He feels his brother’s quiet gasp as he touches the very tip of the blade to his cheek, a barely there touch, like a kiss to one of the freckles nestled there, and can’t help the playful smirk that he feels spreading across his face. God, he’s hopeless. He drags the point of the knife slowly down his brother’s cheek and now he can feel Dean’s heart pounding inside his chest as if trying to break itself out, just like his own heart mirrors it through the thin layer of cloth and skin and bone.

“Don’t point a gun at my head again, okay?” he goes on, just as the tip of the blade makes its way to that lush lower lip of Dean’s, and skims over it lightly, slowly.

Dean shudders under him and his eyes that have not yet for a millisecond left Sam’s begin to darken as the pupil slowly eats away at the green. 

“Okay,” Dean almost whispers, voice gone husky and hinting at his future baritone more than before.

Sam smiles now, open and sincere, and swiftly pulls the knife away, turning it around handle-first in his hand, then yanks himself up and onto his feet. He feels giddy and a bit lightheaded, that moment of tension that seemed to dilate itself through time now broken. He holds out a hand to Dean, eyebrow raised, who in turn stares blinking at him for another couple of breaths, before he seems to shake himself out of it and accept the hand, pulling himself up as well.

Dean clears his throat and shakes his head a little, now turned halfway towards the two Nereids that have vanished almost completely in a quickly dissipating fog, so that Sam can only see his profile and catch a quick glance from the corner of Dean’s left eye.

“Dude, you really know how to make a first impression,” he says, amusement audible in his tone.

“Well, I try my best,” Sam shrugs with a smile, and is rewarded to see the barest glint of an answering smile on Dean’s lips as well, before he turns around and starts picking up his discarded weapons from the ground. Sam’s heart soars.

They leave the bodies to dissolve on their own and they pick their way through the trees towards the edge of the forest in companionable silence that neither of them wants to break, even though they can feel the questions bubbling just beneath the surface. If Dean notices the telltale bulge in Sam’s jeans as they walk, he doesn’t say anything, but that’s okay, because Sam also doesn’t notice the blush that has taken permanent residence high in Dean’s cheeks and he definitely doesn’t feel a sense of happiness and pride for having put it there.

~

“So, you’re a hunter too.” A statement, not a question. 

“Yeah,” Sam answers distractedly. Inside his head, there are a thousand questions warring against one another. Who brought him here? What are they after? How is he supposed to get back? Or, better yet, where exactly is he? He’s guessing it’s 1995, but he doesn’t remember this particular hunt. Then again, at the time he was thirteen years old and he didn’t usually go out on hunts with his brother and Dad – ‘Oh shit, Dad!’ He didn’t even think that he might bump into the man here! – He would be left holed up in whatever town they were staying, and the other two would go off for days on end, sometimes even weeks, no telling how long the hunt would take, while Sam would wait for them to return with that constant vice clutching at his throat, reminding him that one day their luck would run out and one or both of them would never walk back through that door. So, yeah, he didn’t personally know this case, but he had enough intel to figure it out.

He’s pretty sure the entry in Dad’s journal about the water nymphs was added about this time, and he can easily recall the details of the case (he should, after all, he’s leafed through the pages of that thing enough times to have it practically memorized) – five victims every three years, bodies found completely drained of moisture with no apparent cause of death always in the vicinity of a river (the things liked to move around), they managed to gank them after the first three victims near… Duluth, Minnesota ( _‘Of course! Now it’s all coming together!’_ ).

“I’ve been following those Nereids’ trail all the way up from New Orleans three years ago,” Sam improvises. “Now that I’ve caught up with them, seems as though you beat me to the prize.”

“Yeah, well,” Dean continues pacing through the trees. “Didn’t expect it to be two of them.”

“They travel in pairs,” Sam murmurs as he sidesteps a fallen tree trunk on the ground. 

“By the way,” Dean says. “Thanks for helping me out back there.”

“Don’t mention it,” Sam waves a hand. “You wouldn’t happen to have a ride out of here, though?” he thinks to ask. “The guy who gave me a lift here ditched me, and I’m not looking forward to a hike all the way back to civilization.”

 _‘Well, that’s one way of putting it, at least.’_ he grumbles mentally.

“Sure,” Dean hurries to say. “It’s the least I can do.”

Sam keeps rifling through his memories from fifteen years ago, trying to piece back the events and figure out the reason he was brought back here. He’d been left with Pastor Jim back in Blue Earth to finish the school year. Dean had dropped out a year before, not long after Dad gave him the Impala, and they began going on these long hunting trips together, often leaving Sam behind with one of Dad’s friends. He used to hate and relish those days at the same time; for one, he was allowed to immerse himself in schoolwork like he truly wanted and he had a chance to put some distance between him and Dean, with all those confusing and scary as hell feelings that bloomed whenever he was close by, but on the other hand, he was worried sick. They’d check in, sure, every once in a while, to ask him to do research or just see that he was alright, but more often than not there’d be radio silence and Sam had no way of knowing whether they were still alive or not. Until the next call. And so on. Sam hated it, hated that his Dad would drag them all over the place, hated that ‘need-to-know’ bullshit and hated that Dean was slipping further away from him every day, swallowed up by the hunt and Dad’s obsession for revenge. That’s when the first thoughts of getting out of this life were born, he’d felt as if there would be nothing left of him if he kept going on like that.

But why? Why bring him back here, now? As far as he can remember, nothing out of the ordinary happened this year, at least not that he knows of. Maybe something happens to Dean or Dad and he needs to stop it, maybe he needs to change something, or maybe he’s already changed it earlier when he saved Dean from the nymph. But then, why is he still here? There must be a purpose, something he has to do here, that’s why he was brought back. Until now, every time one of them has travelled to the past, there’s always been some purpose, a point to be made by the angels, some mindfuckery meant to teach them a lesson, and Sam doesn’t think Lucifer would have beat around the bush like this if he had really found him, so it can’t be him. It has to be an angel, no demon has the power to pull such a stunt, but what is he supposed to do? What is the point? What are they trying to prove this time?

Sam feels his hackles rise at the thought that he’s being used like a pawn on the board by these supernatural douchebags once again. It seems like every step he takes needs to be dictated by the minions of heaven and hell and he can’t ever catch a break. He’s so fed up with it all, so bitter and raw, so tired of running away from Lucifer and Michael, so tired of fearing to close his eyes because the devil is waiting for him on the other side of his eyelids, so embittered to see his brother drinking himself into a stupor and losing a piece of himself every single day that brings them closer to the Apocalypse. An Apocalypse that they both started, why not call it as it is, but the guilt of which is pinned only on Sam’s shoulders. And it hurts so damn much to see the mistrust and distance in his brother’s eyes, even if he says he’s forgiven him, to see the blame in there, to see himself as a stranger in the eyes of the only person he has left in the world. The only person Sam has ever belonged to, even when they pushed him away. Sam knows that Dean has never been and never will be his, he’s learned it early on and tried ever since to find something else to give him meaning, to fill this gaping chasm in his soul. He’s fought against the forces that have tried to claim Sam’s destiny as theirs, and he still obstinately refuses to yield, even though he really has nothing left to fight for anymore. 

So it’s really not that different to see this earlier version of his brother looking at him like a stranger, watching him from the corner of his eye with barely concealed interest that he would never have felt if he knew who Sam really was. No surprise to find himself thrown back in the past at the mercy of Heaven’s machinations, primed and ready to be used like the puppet he is. Just another day in the life of Sam friggin’ Winchester.

“Well, what do you think?” his brother’s voice brings him out of his thoughts. 

They’ve reached the fringe of the woods, and there the Impala sits, gleaming in the warm afternoon light, one of the few things in his life that never change, and Sam can’t help a small smile from curling his lips as he sees this tether, this anchor that links past, present and future. He’s almost sure this car will survive long after he’s gone; after all, it’s already outlived Dean once, even if he came back after. He reaches out his hand and runs his fingertips over the black paint, metal warm from sitting in the sun too long.

“Really nice car you’ve got here,” he says. “A ’67, right?”

Dean beams at him, all teeth and pride, as he unlocks the door, and promptly begins to divulge the history and qualities of his Baby. They pull out on the bumpy country road and, now that they’ve apparently found some common ground, the conversation flows easily back and forth. Sam can’t help stealing glances at his brother’s profile as he drives, marveled at how young and carefree he looks, how light without the burden of his future knowledge, without the shadows life has put on his face. So untarnished by everything, that his eyes still hold that gleaming hope and expectation of a free man. 

“My Dad gave me this car last year, you know?” Dean is saying. “For my birthday.”

“Does he know you’re hunting?” Sam asks, because he must keep up the pretense.

“He’s the one that taught me everything I know,” Dean supplies, and there, right there in his voice is the same hero worship Sam knows so well. “It’s just the three of us on the road, me, my Dad, and my little brother Sammy. We go where we’re needed, saving people and hunting things. It’s kind of a family business for us.”

“So what are you doing out here on your own, then?” Sam can’t help himself but ask. Dad should have been here to watch Dean’s back, not let him throw himself into danger like this, unprepared and alone. Who knows what might have happened if Sam hadn’t shown up when he did.

Dean just looks stung at that.

“No offence, dude, but I’ve been doing this all my life,” he says. “I know what I’m getting myself into and I know how to handle it.”

“You were ‘handling’ it just fine when I found you,” Sam shoots back with a smirk.

“I would’ve taken her down on my own even without your help,” he insists. 

Sam just raises an eyebrow at him. Dean huffs and turns his attention back to the road. A road sign announces Duluth just a few miles ahead.

“Best call it a stroke of luck that I showed, and leave it at that, then,” Sam says placatingly, not wanting to antagonize his brother at least before they get to town and Sam doesn’t run the risk of being dumped on the side of the road. Besides, he doesn’t want to part ways with his… _younger (‘Jesus Christ!’)_ brother yet.

“Actually, I’m meeting up with my Dad later this evening,” Dean says after a pause. “You’re welcome to join us if you like.”

Dean is looking at him questioningly from the corner of his eye, an odd tentativeness to his question that he’s trying to hide behind deliberate casualness. But Sam has known Dean all his life and nobody can read the language of his body better than him. Dean really wants him to say ‘yes’.

For a second, Sam internally balks at the thought of seeing his father again, after all these years, a ball of pain and regret he always carries inside of his chest threatening to unknot and squeeze his lungs dry. He can’t, he can’t do this… He mentally slaps himself out of it. He can’t back down now, he has to sort this thing out and meeting John again could be pivotal to that.

“Sure,” he finally answers, and Dean throws another one of those megawatt smiles his way, making Sam’s insides twitch and his stupid brain wonder for a second if he really thought he could refuse anything his brother asked of him.

“I have to take care of some business first, though,” he amends.

He has to get his bearings in this new city, and not to mention some money - he can’t go around flashing the 2010 bills he has tucked inside his wallet - and needs to find a motel or something to haul up. Plus, he’s got little to no weapons on him and he still needs to figure out the reason he was brought back to 1995. 

“No problem, man,” Dean hurries to assure him. He rattles on the name of a bar and the hour they’re supposed to meet just as they’re entering Duluth.

“Catch you later,” Sam says, climbing out of the car when they reach the center of the city.

“Yeah, see you there,” Dean says with a smirk and a lingering look at Sam, before he pulls out on the street and away from Sam’s sight around a corner.

Sam watches him go, then takes a shuddering breath as he feels the remaining tension drain from his limbs.

“Fuck.”

~

Sam checks his watch again as he takes another puff off his cigarette. He’s really thinking about taking up smoking again, it’s not like he’s gonna live long enough to die of cancer, is he? At least the half empty pack made it back to the other side of the whirlpool with him, thank God for small mercies. He settles himself against the alley wall and waits for the supplier to arrive. He wishes the idiot would just hurry up, he’s gonna be running late for his meeting with Dad and Dean.

First things first upon getting into town, he’d pickpocketed the wallets off a couple of business looking types and managed to book himself a room in a seedy motel in the worse part of town, where he knew his ragged clothes wouldn’t pose too much questions, then he bought himself a late lunch, hit the shower and headed straight for the central library.

See, now something about this whole deal doesn’t seem right to Sam. This is not usual angel MO, just pick him up and drop him somewhere without a reason or at least a clue about what he is supposed to do. The last time Cas dragged Dean and him back to the past, it took a lot out of the angel and he’d been nearly catatonic when they arrived, so if it really was an angel involved, he would have been at least temporarily impaired and Sam would have noticed him when he woke up. He had been out for barely a minute on the forest floor, according to his watch, and the angel wouldn’t have been able to hide himself or hightail it out of there so fast. And then there was Chuck’s insistence that whatever had been coming for him was capable of shielding itself from a prophet of the Lord, and no angel had the power to do that, not even Lucifer. Thus, it’s only natural for Sam to consider other options, isn’t it?

Maybe it wasn’t an angel, or a demon at all, maybe it was something else. He couldn’t think of a creature that would be able to control time like that, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t one out there. He just has to find it. And even if he never finds out the reason he was brought to the past, he still needs to get back to his own time. The Apocalypse is getting nearer every day, and he can’t leave his brother alone to face it. They still have to find Pestilence, and with Cas still AWOL, they’re vulnerable enough as it is. He needs to find a way to get back there, and fast.

He’d gone through all the sources he could find on time travel lore at the library before he hit a dead end, and then he remembered Mickey and the little business he was running on the outskirts of Duluth. 

Sam smiles to himself as he drops the cigarette butt on the ground and stubs it with his boot. If he can’t find information, he can at least get his hands on the next item on the list. Good old Mickey. This was going to be fun.

The sound of a loud, powerful engine breaks the silence and a motorcycle makes its way towards him from the other end of the alley, stopping in front of the door Sam has been watching for over an hour now. A burly looking mountain of a man wearing a black leather jacket and heavy studded boots climbs off and walks towards it. Rummaging in his pocket, he pulls out a chain of keys and he’s just unlocking the door, when Sam approaches him and casually makes his presence known.

“Hey there, Mickey!”

The supplier spins around and fixes Sam with a glare. Pulling himself to his full height and looking as threatening as he can, he grumbles:

“Who the hell are you?”

“Funny you should ask that, Mickey,” Sam says. “Feeling a little homesick? Don’t worry, you’ll be going back there pretty soon.”

“What the…” the guy takes a step towards him ready to clock him one, but Sam swiftly pulls out the hip flask he has filled earlier and splashes a good deal of its contents right in the man’s face.

The supplier lets out a painful cry and raises his hands to his eyes, while his skin immediately starts to sizzle. Sam takes advantage of the moment and pushes the man backwards over the threshold of the room he’d opened, then follows him in and closes the door behind him.

The man stumbles a few steps until he gets his bearings, then raises his bearded face at Sam twisted in a hateful snarl, the dim light in the room glinting off his jet black eyes.

“Hunter!” he hisses through his teeth and lunges for Sam, but his motion is cut off midway as if by an invisible wall.

The demon frantically casts his eyes around, until he looks down and sees the Devil’s Trap etched into the dusty floorboards under his feet. 

“You son of a bitch!” the demon snarls. “What the fuck do you want?”

Sam just steps calmly around him and turns the other way, looking at the vast storage room cum office he’d walked in, for all intents and purposes ignoring the trapped demon behind him. The room is packed full of shelves and cupboards, cluttered with books, various jars and other paraphernalia – Sam can even see a human skull and thigh bone lying on top of a dusty looking tome – and in the middle of it all, a dilapidated desk with a reading lamp casting its yellow light over the piles of paperwork around it.

The place definitely looks worse than it did the last time he’d been here. But that won’t have happened for a god number of years yet.

“You have quite a bunch of things I want, Mickey,” Sam says, turning back to the demon at length. “But first things first.”

_“Exorcisamus te, omnis immundus spiritus…”_

“No!” the demon shouts and throws himself against the boundaries of the trap in a fruitless struggle to escape.

Sam continues the incantation undeterred while the demon twists and turns, howling in rage and cursing at Sam in all the ways he can think of.

It only takes him a minute to finish off the exorcism and then a thick pillar of black smoke vaults upwards from the man’s open mouth, then back down towards the floor, disappearing in a flash of crimson sparks. The man crumples in a heap to the ground.

Sam manages to drag his unconscious bulk across the floor and pin him upright against the nearest cupboard. He is still alive and he will stay that way. Then, Sam picks up a dusty duffel bag that had been hanging from a hook on the wall by the door and starts pacing the room, searching through the countless items stored there and selecting the ones he needed.

The first time Sam had met Mickey Hanson, he and his brother were still trying to track down their Dad in the aftermath of Jess’s death. The burly hunter was one of the few contacts John had managed not to piss off through the years and one that would supply him periodically with spells and other items he needed on the job. He was the go-to guy for consecrated objects, specialized weapons, ingredients for all sorts of rituals and sometimes even rare spell books, and every hunter had darkened his doorstep in need at one point or another. After his fallout with Bobby Singer, John had often resorted to Mickey for intel and supplies, for a suitable price, of course, and they’d developed a lasting camaraderie over the years.

Unfortunately, Mickey didn’t have any information on John’s whereabouts at the time, but he gladly offered them a pint of beer and then another and kept them coming, and after they were well on the way to drunk and maudlin, revealed the story of how he had become a hunter. He told them with a faraway glint in his eye about the demon that had possessed him a long time ago and used his meatsuit for four whole years to make a lucrative little business for himself in Duluth, smuggling rare enchanted objects and curses to other demons. He told them about a hunter that had found him and finally freed him from the demon, who’d taught him about the things that lurk in the dark preying on people and told him then that he had a choice, to walk away and never look back, or stay on the path and make a difference. And then, he had decided to keep the business running, but turn it into a supply hub for other hunters, and swore to himself to make those four years matter, to turn his bad stroke of luck into something good, something useful. When asked about the man who had saved him, Mickey had smirked at them knowingly, said ‘Wesson’ and left it at that.

So, yeah, Sam glances at the slumped man on the ground, as he thrusts a silver bladed machete into his bag. He is going to be alright.

~

‘The Red Lion’ is a nondescript pub nestled between a pawn shop and a tattoo parlor, it doesn’t even have a sign above the door; blink and you could miss it on the shady looking street at this hour. Sam pulls up to the front and climbs off his motorcycle (a thank you gift from Mickey), securing it to a lamppost, then makes his way to the entrance.

He feels jittery as hell, wound tighter than a coiled string as he pushes the door and the heavy scent of beer and cigarette smoke hit him in the face, along with the strained sounds of Motley Crue coming from the jukebox near the door. The place is not that large, but it’s teeming with people, dubious looking types crowded around the bar and watching the rerun of a football match on a small screen hung above the liquor shelves, others nursing their drinks around the few tables scattered through the room. Nobody pays any attention to him.

He quickly scans the faces around him and spots Dean and John sitting at a table near the back, hunched over a map spread on the sticky surface and talking intently. For a second, all the air leaves his lungs. He watches the drawn, shadowy lines on John’s face, beneath the furrowed brow and scraggly beard and his chest feels fit to burst with the sudden rush of longing and regret, with all the things left unsaid and all the unfair things they have accused each other of. Seeing them here, his Dad and Dean, only reminds him of the pain he’d felt as he lost them both, he sees them dying, one after the other, and the loss is overwhelming for a beat. He wants to tell them everything, to warn them and prevent their wretched fate, to give them the chance that destiny never provided. He wants to go and kill that yellow eyed son of a bitch with his bare hands before he ever gets close enough to break his family to pieces.

As quickly as temptation flares, Sam shakes himself out of it. He’s been here before, pinned all his thoughts and hope on the off chance that he will be able to change things. It’s never worked out before, you cannot change the past. Dean tried it on his own when Zachariah sent him back to 1975, then both of them tried once again when they went after Anna, but they only managed to make things worse. The whole deal with Mickey was not the exception it appeared to be - it had always been supposed to happen, he hadn’t changed a thing but merely ensured the continuity of the timeline. No, he has to stick to the plan he thought up as he was rifling through Mickey’s supply shack. He needs to get back to his own time, the only place he can really make a stand, and he mustn’t get distracted and fall into the same trap as before.

He straightens his shoulders and puts his mask back in place, stepping forward. He can do this. He mustn’t deviate from his plan.

The first one who notices his approach is Dean. The map is carefully folded and tucked aside as John raises his eyes at him. As Sam pauses in front of their table, Dean gives him a nod and greets:

“Glad you could make it.”

“ ’Evening,” Sam nods at them both, trying to keep himself from bolting back out the door. God, now that he is close, he can even see the few gray hairs that have started to peek through his father’s dark beard. 

“Sam Wesson, John Winchester,” Dean makes the introductions.

John is watching him with a calculating look, like he is trying to see through Sam’s skin to his very soul. He doesn’t give any sign of recognition though, so the ring is still working its mojo. He reaches out a hand and shakes Sam’s, and that firm, unwavering grip only makes this even more real.

“It’s a pleasure to meet the man who, from what I’ve heard, practically saved my son’s life today,” John says.

“Sir,” Sam acknowledges with a nod, not really knowing what to do with himself under that sharp scrutiny.

“None of that ‘sir’ crap,” John waves dismissively. “Call me John. We’re in the same line of work now, aren’t we?”

Sam is almost stunned by the thought that right now he is closer in age to John than to his own brother. _‘Jesus!’_

“Alright,” Sam accepts. “Nice to meet you, John.”

“Have a seat,” John gestures to the free chair on his left.

Sam carefully sits himself as casually as he can make his body work at this point.

“Dean, why don’t you go and buy us the next round? My treat.” John finally turns to the other side of the table, still keeping Sam in his sights though.

“Sure,” Dean rises from his seat. “So, what’s your poison?” he asks Sam.

“Whatever’s on tap is fine with me,” he answers, and Dean makes his way to the bar with a nod, leaving Sam alone with Dad.

“It’s lucky you happened by that forest today,” John says after a pause. 

Settling back in his chair, Sam clears his throat, pushing all his anxiety down. He has to make this good, he has to play his part.

“Well, luck’s got little to do with it, actually,” he says. “I’ve been tracking that pair of nymphs for three years now. They gave me the slip back in New Orleans, but I finally picked up their trail again last week. I knew they’d be holed up somewhere near running water, it just took me a while to find the exact spot.”

John nods.

“My son tells me you didn’t have a car with you. How did you manage to reach the river on your own?”

Sam is ready for it.

“I hitched a ride up there with one of the lumberjacks who supplies that warehouse by the docks,” he lies smoothly. “Bastard was supposed to wait for me to get back, but he took the money and bolted right after he dropped me off. My own ride isn’t what you’d call suitable for country roads, if you know what I mean,” he says, holding up the keys to his Harley for John to see.

John glances at them and nods with the hint of a smirk:

“No, I guess not.”

A bit of the tension seems to wane from his stance.

“I’m a four by four man myself, gets the job done” he says, as Dean returns with the drinks and takes his seat again.

After they all take a drink from their respective beers, John settles back and regards Sam speculatively once again.

“So, Sam,” he begins casually. “I can tell that you’ve been in the business for a while at least. How come I’ve never heard about you through the grapevine?”

 _‘Here it comes,’_ Sam thinks.

“You wouldn’t have. I usually work down South, Louisiana” he glances carefully at John above the rim of his pint. _‘Here goes nothing.’_ “Mostly ‘round Pont du Lac.”

And there is the sharp intake of breath Sam had been expecting.

All through the Winchesters’ hunting life, as far as he can remember, they’ve never taken a case down South, and neither have any other hunters that Sam knows of. Hunting in Louisiana holds a different kind of flavor and requires specialized expertise. The olden magic wrought around the place has always made it a Bermuda Triangle of supernatural activity, and the creatures of the dark plaguing the deep green marshes or the old colonial settlements of the bayou follow a different set of rules. Louisiana is the home of black magic and Vaudoun priests, of ancient Native American tradition blended with the exotic rituals brought by African slaves, hybridized further with Christian influences to form a whole new set of values and beliefs. There are forces there that need to be appeased, and creatures that only a select few can take on. There are even rumors of a gateway to the underworld that has been guarded for generations, a tenuous balance that must be kept through blood, prayer and sacrifice. Hunters down there are a tight sect and they don’t take kindly to outsiders encroaching on their turf. But above all, there are the stories about Pont du Lac, the focal point of all things otherworldly, where it is said that the gods themselves descend and walk amongst the people, home and also training base for a small number of people who are rumored to have such powers by birthright that they can control the supernatural and bend it to their will, protectors of the balance and slayers of evil. Of course, these are only legends threaded through with generations’ worth of superstition, and nobody has ever been able to actually find Pont du Lac. Coupled with the exclusivism and general secrecy of the hunter network down there, there is only this aura of respect and even a bit of apprehension towards the dealings going on in that place, and hunters from upstate have learned the hard way to mind their own business and leave them be. It is the best cover Sam could have used.

“You mean that place is real?” Dean asks, disbelief coloring his voice.

He puts as much conviction into his stare as he can, weighing it down with the depth of knowledge he has gained over the years, and speaks only one word:

“Yes.”

After all, he’s seen it with his own eyes.

John seems to read the truth in his stance, because he leans forward on his elbows, looking intently at Sam and asks:

“So are you one of them psychic kids I’ve heard talk about?”

Honestly, Sam thinks, John has no idea how close to the truth he struck. An amused chuckle rises out from his chest, as Sam speaks:

“Really, John, we haven’t known each other long enough to let _that_ cat out of the bag.”

For a second, John’s face remains blank, still fixed on Sam’s face, while Dean watches them probably thinking that this is it, the moment to decide between friend or foe. Sam himself is holding his breath under his teasing smirk.

Then, at once, John’s face seems to relax into a wide grin and a bark of laughter slips from his mouth. He claps a hand to Sam’s shoulder and says:

“You’re alright, Sam Wesson.”

Dean visibly relaxes as well, now that the newcomer has been approved by the head of the family. 

They sit and they drink, swapping hunting stories back and forth, comparing notes and opinions, Sam carefully avoiding to reveal information about the cases they’d solve together in the future and limiting himself to the ones he’d taken on by himself during the six months after the Mystery Spot time loop or the monsters he’d hunted alone during Dean’s stint in hell. The mistrust is almost all the way gone from John’s stance, even if he still seems a bit reserved; after all, as far as he’s aware, he’s only just met Sam. 

It all feels so companionable and easy, so unlike how conversations with John usually went down in the past, that Sam can’t help but feel a pang of regret deep in his heart. He still remembers John’s last words to Sam before he died, pleading with him to just for once stop fighting. If only he had listened more, if only he had been able to look past his own anger, maybe his relationship with his Dad would have been different. 

When their pints have gone empty again, Dean goes back to the bar to buy a fourth round, squeezing past the crowd that has become even rowdier than before. John’s eyes follow him as he disappears between the bulk of the bar’s patrons, and says in a somewhat wistful tone:

“Thank you for looking after him today.”

Only then does Sam realize he’d been watching Dean go with a gaze not so much different from John’s.

“It’s alright, man,” he shakes his head. “I’m just glad I could help out, that’s all.”

“I try to shelter him as much as I can, you know?” John speaks on, as if he hasn’t heard Sam’s reply. “But he wants his independence, he wants to prove himself. I let him go on hunts alone from time to time, he needs to find his own pace, and he needs to learn how to handle himself on his own. One day I might not be there to watch his back anymore.”

John pauses for a beat and lowers his gaze to his hands.

“Sometimes, I wonder if I’m doing the right thing.” he murmurs almost to himself.

Sam doesn’t know how to answer that, there are too many feelings warring with each other in his chest, so he remains quiet.

Dean comes back to the table juggling thee more pints, and John rouses himself from his thoughts, the odd confessional mood now gone.

He picks up the folded map from where it has been shoved aside and pushes it to the middle of the table.

“I’ve been thinking,” he says, looking at Sam. “I know you southern types don’t normally take on cases further upstate if you can help it. But there’s a case in a town not far from here that I’ve been looking into. Haven’t seen anything like it before, and it looks like it’s a three man job, possibly even more. I wouldn’t normally be asking, but Caleb, the guy who usually lends me a hand in situations like this, is busy tracking down a black dog in Montana, so we’re a little short on manpower at the moment.”

John pauses, clearly unused to asking for help, especially from a complete stranger. Sam takes a moment to think it through. The case itself wouldn’t be a problem, but Sam doesn’t know if he can keep up the pretense much longer around John and Dean. The lying came out easily enough, a lifetime’s worth of it has made him a better actor than most, but what if he accidentally lets something slip? What if he does something that could irrevocably screw up the timeline? What if he brings whatever creature is after him down on their heads as well? What if he gets distracted and sucked into this life that he won’t ever want to get back to his own time?... But he also doesn’t have a clear idea of his next step. Sure, he’s made a plan, foolhardy and a long shot as it is, but he doesn’t know where to begin looking for what he needs just yet. He doesn’t have his usual contacts or resources here, back in 1995, and maybe traveling with Dean and John would be useful in that aspect. It wouldn’t be such a bad idea to stay with them just a bit longer, would it? Sam ruthlessly squashes down that tiny part of his mind that tells him he is not ready to leave either of them out of his sight just yet, that he’ll never get a chance to see them like this again, that he feels a quintessential need to stay close to his brother, past, present version, however he can get him.

“Okay then,” Sam’s mouth answers before his brain can catch up with it. “I don’t have anything urgent lined up right now, so I guess I can spare the time.”

John nods at him, clearly relieved, and starts unfolding the map.

“So what is the case, then?” Sam asks, all the while thinking _‘What the fuck have I gotten myself into this time?’_

~

Next day, late afternoon finds Sam astride his Harley, speeding down Highway 53 towards the small town of Orr, Minnesota, a blip on the map 100 miles north of Duluth. 

For a couple of weeks, there had been rumors of strange sightings around the town, and four men had vanished from their own homes without a trace. Then, two days ago, all communication with the settlement had been cut off. A patrol car sent over from the nearest town to investigate had never reported back and newspapers said authorities were currently assembling an emergency rescue team to send back to Orr. The last that was heard from the town was a phone call from one of the elder residents to her granddaughter in Duluth at three o’clock in the morning saying that there was some sort of black fog descending upon them and that she could hear it calling out to them, when all phone lines and radio channels went suddenly dead. 

The black smoke had made John think of demons. The plan had been for him and Dean to drive on ahead that morning and scope out the place, while Sam would wait in Duluth for their signal to follow, in case they ran into any trouble or were incapacitated and needed a failsafe plan. John had given him one of those blocky Motorola cell phones for that very purpose, but afternoon had come and almost gone without any sign from them, and when Sam tried to call, he couldn’t reach either of their numbers.

So damn right Sam’s worried. More than that, he is fuming for having let them go off on their own. Really, that was just begging for trouble, he should have known better. So he packed the entire arsenal he’d picked up from Mickey and a change of clothes in his bag and hightailed it straight to Orr.

Whatever has gotten hold of those people in town needs to be dealt with before the rescue team is due to get there, or else the whole area will just be a trap to anyone else going in.

The Kabetogama State Forest stretches thick and menacing on either side of the road as he nears the edge of town. A rusted old welcome sign catches the glint of the last rays of sun as it sets behind the trees, and Sam pauses for a moment, his mind rattling on that he has no plan and he’s going in blind. Well, fuck that. His family is in there. He needs to get to Dad. He needs to get to Dean.

He revs the engine and moves forward. Just as he passes the signpost marking Orr’s boundary, he feels an odd current pass through his body, making his hair stand on end. ‘Shit.’

The narrow street takes him past dilapidated houses that seem utterly devoid of life. Even for a town of population just under 200, this is more than disturbing. 

A blur of movement catches Sam’s eye from his right, just before a harried looking woman, dressed in a flowery dress and clutching a bag to her chest, stumbles out of the bushes surrounding one yard and almost falls in front of his bike. Sam immediately hits the brakes and turns towards the woman who is looking at him like she’s never seen a human being before.

“Easy there,” Sam tries to calm her. “What are you running from?”

“What are you doing here?” she looks at him with utter bewilderment, and the next second she seems to think better. “Quick, we need to get out of here!” she grabs hold of his jacket sleeve, looking behind over her shoulder. “It’s coming!”

“What? What’s coming?” Sam asks, trying to see past her. 

“Please!” she starts to shake him. “The sun is setting, there’s no time!”

Sam catches sight of a black tendril of smoke whirling through the trees behind the house and creeping along the wall towards the front yard.

“Right,” he says and grabs the woman’s waist, pulling her astride his bike and guns the engine. “Where to?”

“Town Hall, or Pennybrook Inn, that’s the closest,” she says frantically. “Just go straight ahead.”

Sam pulls out without further comment and speeds towards the four storey building he can make out standing a little to the left off main street. It’s the only building in town that has light in its windows and he can see cars parked haphazardly all around the front entrance. One of them is the Impala. ‘Oh, thank God!’

As they reach the narrow cobblestone pathway that leads to the inn, Sam can see a 20 inch high dirt moat dug in an approximate circle around the place, filled with something white and doubled by a mishmash of rusted pipes and scraps of metal welded together following its contour. Sam stops the engine just in front of the weird contraption, grabs his bag in one hand and the woman’s arm in another and hops over the makeshift barrier, hurrying towards the door.

“Open up!” the woman starts pounding on the wood. “It’s me, Lydia!”

Right then, the door is yanked open by a man dressed in a brownish plaid shirt and jeans, holding a shotgun in his hand.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” the man scowls at her, but the woman – Lydia – just huffs and pushes past him with her bag, disappearing down the hall to the right.

The small reception area Sam can see is packed full of people of all ages, some talking in hushed tones amongst themselves, others sitting on a few chairs, others looking anxiously out the windows.

“And who the hell might you be?” the man asks with a glare, pointing the shotgun to Sam’s chest.

Before Sam can even open his mouth, there is a voice calling out from somewhere inside.

“Sam!” 

Relief floods him in an instant as Dean comes rushing to the door from an adjoining room.

“It’s alright Hank, I know him,” he turns to the other man, looking pointedly at the gun.

“Yeah, right, fat lot of good that does,” Hank mumbles as he lowers his shotgun and turns back to the room, walking out of sight.

“Wow, grumpy much?” Sam frowns after him.

“Follow me,” Dean says, shutting the door, and leads Sam to the small room behind the check-in counter from where he’d exited earlier.

There is a small desk there, with gun shells cracked open and waiting to be filled with rock salt from a large bag on the floor, just like he’s seen Dean do a hundred times while they’ve been hunting together. 

“Dude, what took you so long?” Dean spins around towards him.

“I came here as fast as I could when you didn’t answer your phone this afternoon, it’s only been, like, ten hours,” Sam answers. “Where’s John?”

“Dad’s at the Town Hall with the others,” Dean distractedly supplies. “What do you mean, ten hours?”

“That’s how long ago you left from Duluth,” Sam spells it out for him, wondering what the problem is.

Dean pauses for a second and when he speaks, it’s with a faint trace of apprehension:

“We’ve been here for two days.”

Sam lets himself lean against one of the walls and runs a hand across his face, mind reeling.

“Shit,” he lets out a breath. “Temporal displacement or some kind of time loop… Shit, this is so much worse than I thought.”

“You’ve seen this before?” Dean asks, curiosity suddenly piqued.

“Something like it, yeah, but… I don’t even know what I’m seeing now. What’s been happening here?”

Dean heaves a long breath and begins to speak. It all started with the disappearance of Clint Matheson, old war veteran and town drunk, who lived in a rundown shack on the edge of town and took his rifle out at weekends into the forest to shoot at birds. Since he could barely even hold his gun straight in his stupor, he never did catch anything, and his closer neighbors complained about the danger of his weekly meanderings in the woods, but the town sheriff who had served with him in the same squadron in Vietnam would always let him off the hook. One Saturday afternoon, Matheson came running into the local watering hole brandishing his gun around and babbling something about enemy troops in the forest and those yellow fuckers coming back to hunt him down. When the barkeep tried to get him to calm down, he started shooting at random and then a couple of men had to restrain him. The sheriff put him in a cell for the night, but all the while he never stopped yelling his guts out. When they unlocked the cell the next morning, Matheson had inexplicably vanished and was never found again. There was no way he could have gotten out of that cell by himself.

The second unexplained disappearance took place three days later - a middle aged woman called Maggie Smith, whose husband had died of cancer a few years back and, since she didn’t have any children of her own, was living with her sister and her brother in law in a little apartment above the local pharmacy they owned. She was helping sort out the shelves one day when she started scratching frantically at her arms and pulling at her clothes, all the while screaming: “Get them off me! Oh, God, get them off me!”. They couldn’t do anything to calm her down and in the end, they gave her a strong sedative and took her to her room. But when her sister went in to check up on her in the morning, she was just gone, all windows and doors shut and again, no way to track her down.

The third one was a seven year old girl, Amy Lester, again after three days. She was playing in her back yard when she began to cry out to her mother about a monster that came out of the forest and tried to eat her. The father came back home from work early that evening and between them they managed to calm her down enough to get her to drink a glass of milk. They left her in the kitchen alone for barely a minute while they stepped just out of earshot to talk about calling a doctor, but when they came back in, she was gone, just like the other two. But the father could have sworn that he saw a tendril of black smoke disappearing under the door to the back yard. At this point, the town was in an uproar, the parents screaming bloody murder and the others finally acknowledging that something horrible was going on and that it had a pattern.

They organized a search party and trawled the woods for days on end, but they couldn’t find anything. On the twelfth day since it all began, the group of men were still scattered around the forest, looking for the little girl, when a terrified scream made them all stop and rush towards the place it came from. The men found Sheriff Wilson had tripped on a tree root while running from something, fell and impaled himself through the chest on a branch. He was lying dead in a pool of his own blood when they found him, so they took him back to town and put his body in a freezer at the local clinic. The next morning, the body was gone.

People were scared out of their minds. Rumors of black smoke sightings were getting more frequent, and they were convinced the town was haunted. They tried to call in help from the nearby towns, but nobody took them seriously. Then all the phone lines went dead and it was full on panic all around. A bunch of people packed up their families and belongings and hightailed it out of town, said they would send back help. 

The next day, two policemen sent down from Cook made their way into town and told them that nobody had heard anything from those people, that nobody had been seen leaving Orr for at least two weeks, but since the small town is kind of a closed off, self-sufficient community no one had thought much about it. It became apparent that whatever was preying on the town wasn’t going to let them leave, and they were all beyond terrified. For them, that had been a week ago, while on the outside hardly two days had passed.

So they hid, they barricaded themselves in their houses. The disappearances increased in number, broke the three-day pattern, and they all happened at night, began right after sundown when a thick black fog would start creeping forward from the forest, along streets and between buildings, picking out people at random from their own homes. No one was safe, and there wasn’t a damn thing they could do. People spoke of horrible creatures that would come out of the fog and snatch their victims away, of Hell itself coming up to swallow them whole.

The town priest began hollering up and down about Judgment Day, about sinners and repentance, about God’s punishment for straying from the Church. He’d set his sights on three Native American families living in town, claiming that they were the ones who had brought this on their heads, with their pagan beliefs and witchcraft; he even rallied up a group of fanatics desperate enough to believe him and one evening they went to those people’s homes and started throwing stones at their windows and yelling at them to come out and meet their maker. The preacher sputtered and yelled until the smoke came and took him as well and the other men turned tail and fled. They were one second away from starting to turn against one another and not even Bill Harris, the town mayor, was able to keep them in check for much longer.

That was when John and Dean came into town. 

Now, two days later, they were all rallied up and barricaded within the three largest buildings in town – the school, Town Hall and Pennybrook Inn, behind makeshift iron and salt lines they had built under John’s directive, the only thing that could keep the smoke out. John’s no-nonsense military attitude and his knowledge made the terrified flock fall into line, and nobody else had been taken since. They were, however, no closer to finding the culprit behind these attacks than before. 

“It’s just weird as hell, man,” Dean explains, as he fiddles with a shotgun shell and then lays it back on the table. “We don’t even know if it’s one creature or more. It’s like each person sees it differently. We’ve got sightings of a horned beast, a giant tentacle lizard, an Indian warrior with an axe and even a pretty good description of Freddy Krueger. Somebody even woke up to a bunch of snakes in their bed that nobody else could see.”

“Some kind of hallucinations?” Sam wondered.

“That’s what we think,” Dean answered. “Dad has this theory about it using people’s greatest fears against them. Like priming them before the taking.”

“Right.” Sam nods. “But you said the smoke is affected by rock salt and iron, so at least it’s partly corporeal. And it can only manifest itself at night.”

“We think there’s something out there in the forest.” Dean says. “It’s where the whole thing started. Maybe that old geezer Matheson stumbled across something he shouldn’t have, disturbed some altar or some sacred burial ground. There used to be Sioux and Ojibwa tribes in this region, so we’re talking, maybe, spirits, very old and powerful at that.”

“There’s no spirit I can think of that can manipulate time like this,” Sam shakes his head thoughtfully. “There are only a few things powerful enough for this kind of mayhem, but I can’t think of a reason they’d suddenly decide to take out a random town in Bumfuck Minnesota… Did anything happen here recently? Something out of the ordinary, like mining or excavation, tearing down a building or something like that?”

“We’ve already checked,” Dean answers. “And nothing. There are a few local myths and superstitions, mostly about totem spirits of the forest that the earlier tribes worshipped, but they were all mostly benign. Also, there’s never been rumor of anything strange happening around here for generations, the place looked clean when Dad and I did the research. If it’s a creature of some sort, it isn’t local.”

“So, someone must have brought it here,” Sam muses.

“Can’t you, like, do a ritual or use your fancy psychic mojo to find out what’s going on?” Dean asks. “We’ve all heard the crazy ass shit you southerners get up to.”

Sam blinks at him for a second, before huffing a laugh:

“I don’t have fancy superpowers, Dean, no matter what you think you’ve heard.” He pauses for a second, considering. “But I think I have a scrying ritual that might work, I just need to get…”

Just then the sound of yelling and gunshots pierces the silence, and they both rush out to the reception area where a bunch of people have gathered on the threshold of the open door, looking out towards the front yard.  
Three men armed with shotguns are firing rock salt at a waft of black mist that is inching perilously close to the house.

“Shit, it punched a hole through the barrier!” Dean exclaims. “Come on!”

They grab two shotguns of their own and rush outside.

“It’s got Jason and Marie!” the man from before, Hank, shouts back at them, reloading his gun.

“Look!” Sam points at a chink in the welded iron pipes just to their left, where the wind has blown a path through the line of salt. He’s already pointing and shooting at a tendril of smoke that has crept inside, whirling towards the building’s door.

“Get back inside!” he shouts to the dazed people who are just standing there and staring at it.

“I’ll get the propane torch,” Dean says and runs back to the inn.

The four of them left outside keep shooting at the black mist that seems to thicken with every passing second, punching holes through it and trying to push it back out.

Dean comes rushing back out carrying a bag of salt and the welding tool, but just as he nears the place of the breach, the blackness seems to lunge at him and wind around his waist, pulling him to the other side of the barrier.

“Dean!” Sam yells, and jogs after him, heart leaping in his throat.

Dean has dropped the propane torch and is whirling around, throwing handfuls of salt from his bag at the surrounding fog, but something keeps dragging him further and further away and it’s hard to make out his form in all that blackness.

“Are you fucking crazy?” Hank shouts after him just as he jumps over the dirt moat. “Get back here!”

Sam pauses to pick up the torch from the ground and throw it back to Hank.

“Get that thing closed!” he shouts before he starts sprinting in the direction he last saw Dean being dragged.

Sam suddenly finds himself engulfed in a slithering pool of shadows, not even able to see two inches in front of his face.

“Dean!” he shouts again, and his own voice sounds oddly muffled in the midst of the smoke.

“Sam!” he hears his brother call out from further ahead and begins to run towards the sound.

He shouts his brother’s name again, but now he is met with silence. He keeps stumbling blindly ahead, almost tripping himself on the edge of a sidewalk, pointing his shotgun around, even though it seems the smoke isn’t making a grab for him yet.

Suddenly, the darkness in front of him thins out, allowing a patch of moonlight to clear a rough circle in the middle of what appears to be somebody’s back yard. Sam stops short and draws a shocked gasp at the sight that meets him. 

Dean’s body is suspended a few inches above ground, struggling and choking against the strong hand wrapped around his throat. Sam zeroes in on that hand and follows it up to find a familiar face grinning at him through radiation burned lips and decaying skin, but somehow still managing that smugness oh, so well.

“Lucifer!” his body coils tight and his heart starts pounding frantically against his ribcage in horror. ‘No! This isn’t possible! How did he find me?’

“Hello Sam!” he answers cheerfully. “It’s nice to finally catch up. Didn’t think you could hide from me forever, did you?”

Dean makes a choked noise as he scrambles against the ruthless fingers holding him tight.

“Please, let him go,” Sam hears himself beg, stepping forward and then halting again.

“Oh, Sammy,” the Devil tsks. “Quid pro quo, my little pet. Just say ‘yes’, and I’ll give him back to you. I’ll even wrap him up in a big red bow if you like.”

“No,” Sam whispers, shaking his head frantically. Dean’s eyes are almost bulging out of his head as he stares back at Sam in panic and confusion. 

“What was that, Sammy? I didn’t quite catch it,” Lucifer taunts.

“No!” Sam says more forcefully. “Never!”

“Oh, well,” the Devil heaves a heavy and fake put-upon sigh, then, in the blink of an eye, twists his wrist and Dean’s spine cracks beneath his fingers. His whole body suddenly goes slack.

“No!” Sam screams, feeling like somebody has ripped his heart right out of his chest, and lunges forward, just as Lucifer lets his brother’s body drop in a graceless heap at his feet.

He falls to his knees and grabs the slumped, lifeless shoulders of the only person who has ever truly given meaning to his life, cradles his smooth cheek in his palm and lets the pain tear through him while he sobs his brother’s name over and over. ‘How can it end like this? After all their struggles, how can it end like this?’

“I can bring him back, you know,” the Devil speaks from above. “I can give you everything you’ve ever wanted and so much more. Just one little word. Just say ‘yes’.”

‘What is the point anymore? What reason do I have to keep doing this?’ Sam thinks numbly, his arms gripping at the lifeless body in his arms.

Just at that moment, the sound of a shotgun spears through the numbing haze of Sam’s thoughts, and the figure of Lucifer wavers for a second like ripples on the surface of a pond. Another shot rings out, and his entire body jolts and disperses into a twirling mass of smoke. The weight in Sam’s arms flickers, then disappears as well.

“Sam!” he hears a voice calling from afar, muffled and disjointed, like trying to cut through a layer of felt covering his ears. Sam keeps looking down at his hands, unable to move, unable to even breathe…

“Sam!” the voice sounds closer, and suddenly a sharp slap to his cheek pitches him sideways and brings him to focus so fast, that his mind is left reeling.

He looks up at the figure standing above him, holding a shotgun with a look of determination on his face, and it’s the most beautiful sight Sam has ever seen in his life.

“Dean?” he mumbles, staring at the young man above him like he might vanish if he dares to blink.

“What the fuck are you doing, man?” Dean’s annoyed voice snaps. “Come on, get up!”

Dean grabs hold of Sam’s arm and pulls him to his feet, then begins dragging him through the black fog that seems to have lost some of its thickness towards a hulking shape a ways further. The air around them seems to shriek with fury and Sam feels it like the jagged sweep of a sandstorm beating against his face, trying to hold him back while they clutch tight to each other and run. They reach a kind of shed, Sam realizes, and stumble through its open door.

Dean pushes the wooden door closed, then grabs the almost empty bag of salt he had been carrying and pours a line of salt along the threshold. If he squints just right, Sam can see the white contour of the salt tracing the edges of the small tool shed all the way around.

For a second, the wind keeps pounding fruitlessly against the wooden walls, making them creak and strain against the onslaught. But the salt barrier holds, and the wind wails its impotent frustration before it stops altogether.

Sam takes a moment to look from the locked door to the figure of his brother standing poised with shotgun held tight in his hand, then feels himself tumble to sit on a wooden crate when his knees give out.

“Oh shit!” he pants, trying to catch his breath. “Oh fuck!”

“What the hell happened back there?” Dean whirls around to face him, angry and grim. “Why didn’t you shoot her?”

“…Her?” Sam blinks at him uncomprehendingly, thoughts muddled and all reason gone.

Dean takes a closer look at him in the faint light coming from a gap in the ceiling, and suddenly his expression softens with understanding.

“But that’s not what you saw, is it?”

Sam looks at him and feels his body starting to shake with leftover adrenaline and fear. Dean takes two strides until he’s standing next to him and places a hand on his shoulder.

“Hey, it’s alright,” he murmurs, squeezing his fingers. “Whatever it was, it wasn’t real.”

Sam feels himself go a little crazy right then. He grabs with both hands at his brother’s shirt then and pulls, presses his face into his stomach, leaning against him, feeling his warmth, the telltale pulse of life within him, reassuring himself that he’s still there, still breathing, still with Sam.

“I thought… I thought…” his throat closes up on the words he cannot make himself speak. ‘I thought I’d lost you. Again.’

“Shh, it’s okay,” Dean soothes in a low voice, as he wraps one hand around Sam’s shoulders and threads the other softly through his hair. “I got you.”

Sam feels his heart clench at those three words, the quiet reassurance and familiarity of them, the deep rumble of his brother’s voice that used to chase his nightmares away when he was a child and anchored him whenever he was drowning in pain after a bad hunt. That voice that would burrow inside his soul and make him believe everything was going to be alright even when his mind was scared out of its wits, when all the odds were against him.

Sam presses his tears into the worn fabric of Dean’s shirt, breathing in deep, inhaling the scent of him, wanting to crawl inside his skin and cradle himself under his ribs, close to his heart, where he can make sure that it will keep beating, never stopping, never taking Dean away from him, never again.

His brother just keeps hold of him, speaking words of comfort, words that Sam cannot even distinguish anymore, but words he clings to like a lifeline nevertheless. Just like he clings to Dean’s very being, this younger version that has no idea who he is, that looks at him like a stranger. But that’s alright, Sam will take what he can get. He will treasure it for the simple gift of Dean being here.

Sam disentangles himself from his brother’s hold and turns his eyes to the side.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, feeling a bit embarrassed by opening himself wide like this and letting Dean see the jagged pieces of his broken soul. He feels wrung out and raw, unstable and foreign in his own skin.

“Hey,” Dean whispers and reaches out a hand, laying it on the left side of Sam’s neck, where it meets collarbone. His thumb strokes along the skin once, pressing it against the bone underneath, making Sam shiver and look up at him. His brother lowers his head and without warning, presses his mouth to Sam’s, catching his lower lip between his teeth and running the tip of his tongue along it.

For a second, Sam’s brain stutters and stops, and doesn’t remember how to make his body move. But just as Dean is trying to pull away, probably misunderstanding his reaction, Sam’s stupid body seems to finally get with the program, because he shoots out his arms desperately and pulls Dean to him, crushing their lips together again.

Dean stumbles and loses his balance, but throws one leg to the side and climbs onto Sam’s lap, biting and licking at his mouth like there is no tomorrow and burying his hands in Sam’s hair. It’s desperate, and needy and so fucking hot, better than Sam could ever have imagined, better than he’s ever dreamed of all those torturous nights lying awake under the sheets and listening to his brother sleep in the other bed.

Sam lets his fingers slide under Dean’s shirt and feels the muscles shifting under warm skin, feels the sheen of sweat covering his spine and runs his hand through it, curls his fingers and drags his nails roughly, feeling every bump all the way down to the waistband of his brother’s jeans. Dean lets out a low grunt that goes straight to Sam’s cock and pushes himself even closer, like he wants to envelop Sam with his whole body. And Sam wants it, wants him so damn much.

They part their mouths only for a second to scramble out of their shirts, and then they crash into each other again, so hungry, skin rubbing together, fingers and nails scraping and pulling and possessing, teeth biting into lips and drawing blood. 

Sam lets his mouth trail open across Dean’s cheek and down the curve of his neck, tasting salt and sweat and desperation, inhaling the scent of gunpowder and soap and Dean, exhilarating like the deadliest drug. 

“Sam”, his brother gasps and arches back, baring his throat, and digs his fingers painfully in Sam’s hair, pulling and twisting and guiding his head down. Sam drags his lips over Dean’s chest, bumping his nose against the amulet nestled there and the pang of remembrance twists bitterly around his heart. He latches onto a nipple and licks it, sucks it into his mouth, sinks his teeth into it making Dean shout and his thighs tighten on either side of his waist.

Sam’s hands find themselves almost without thought fumbling with Dean’s belt buckle, yanking his zipper open and grabbing past the waistband of Dean’s boxers at the throbbing flesh underneath.

Dean arches frantically into his hand and shouts out his name, and Sam would tear the Heavens apart just to hear it again and again until the end of time. Dean pulls him up by the hair and smashes their mouths together again, pushing his tongue inside and scrambling at the same time with Sam’s own pants. 

His cock at this point is straining so painfully against the denim that the quick release out of its zipper makes him moan in relief, and Dean drinks down the sound, wraps his fingers around Sam’s cock and squeezes, making him see stars, working him clumsily but oh, so good.

This is gonna be over pretty fucking fast the way thing are going, but Sam doesn’t give a damn, right now all bets are off and he couldn’t stop himself even if he tried. He pulls his hand out of his brother’s pants, ignoring his protesting moan, and brings his palm up to his mouth, licking a long stripe across it, his eyes never leaving Dean’s face. 

“Oh, fuck!” Dean gasps when Sam wraps his slick palm around both their lengths and squeezes them together.

Sam’s other hand reaches below the waistband and grabs hold of one of Dean’s buttocks, digging its fingers into the flesh and feeling the muscle tighten and release as Dean rocks against Sam’s body.

“Sam, Sam, Sam!” spills over Dean’s lips like a prayer, until he digs his nails into Sam’s shoulders, throws his head back and comes apart so beautifully under his brother’s hands.

The sight of that long expanse of skin and muscle arched taut under the dim light of the stars and hearing that voice scream out his name in ecstasy take Sam over the edge before he knows it. He closes his eyes and sinks his teeth into the flesh of his brother’s left pec, just where his tattoo is going to be etched years from now, and spills out everything he’s got, every last hope and dream and all his desperation in one hot burst.

They hold tight to each other as their bodies shudder with the aftershocks, Sam’s lips tasting blood and sweat, and Dean’s face buried in his brother’s hair, panting out hot breaths against his ear.

They both kind of collapse to the floor after that, leaning against the wooden crate, now disentangled and silent, both looking at nothing in particular but just avoiding one another. Sam doesn’t know what to do with himself now. 

After a while, they manage to clean themselves up as much as they can and then they find and shrug into their discarded shirts. Without a word, Sam picks up the fallen shotgun and perches against a table near the door.

“So,” he says after a couple more minutes spent in awkward silence.

Dean flinches from where he sits on the same wooden crate as before, but tries to cover it up with a cough.

“ ‘Her’, ” Sam decides to cut him some slack. He doesn’t really want to have this discussion right now either.

“Oh, right,” Dean jumps at the pretty obvious deflection. “Really ugly bitch, like a walking corpse, clothes all ripped up, eyes sunk in and some kind of puss dripping from her eyes and nose.” He wrinkles his nose in a way that Sam would never admit he finds endearing. “Her knees and elbows were kinda odd looking too, swollen and disjointed… That’s all I got before I pumped her full of salt.”

“Hmm,” Sam takes it in. “There’s something… something about those swollen joints, I’ve heard that description before, I just can’t remember where.”

“Well, we’ve got a lead now,” Dean says.

“Yeah,” Sam murmurs distractedly, going through the hundreds of creatures he’s researched through the years, but he feels tired and unhinged and the details blend together uselessly in his brain. One thing he knows for sure, though – this bitch’s days are numbered.

They lapse into silence again and this time neither of them feel like breaking it.

~

“Where the hell have you been?” John’s voice bellows as he crosses the street to get up in Dean’s face.

For a moment, Sam has the terrifying thought that this is it, John’s found out all about him and what he did to Dean. But then he tunes back to the ramblings of the man in front of him and hears:

“How could you be so irresponsible? You know the rule: always keep your eyes on the target even when you have another task to complete! You let yourself be captured and put all of those people in danger! I taught you better than that…”

Dean’s shoulders are slumped and he looks so miserable and stoic taking his father’s shit, that Sam’s blood immediately begins to boil and he snarls through gritted teeth:

“With all due respect, John, you’ve got no fucking clue what you’re talking about!”

“Excuse me?” John turns an incredulous face towards him.

“That’s right, John, you weren’t there,” Sam goes on through gritted teeth. “If you’d been there you’d have seen that your son actually saved my life! I was taken down and about to be killed, and he fucking dragged me out of there and kept me alive. Him, alone, not you and not your precious lessons. So next time you wanna start hurtling accusations back and forth, make sure you’ve got all the facts straight first!”

Now both of them are looking at him oddly, surprised that somebody has dared to challenge the almighty John Winchester while he makes a show of how he ‘knows best’. And Sam can’t believe this shit! After all these years, the man still makes him blow his lid off like a fucking rabid dog. 

“Dean, would you excuse us for a minute?” John asks in a deceptively calm voice.

“Yes Sir,” Dean says, his face blank, as he goes a bit further down the street to talk to a group of people gathered in front of the inn.

“Who the hell do you think you are, coming here and telling me how to do my job and how to speak to my son?” John all but growls at him, taking a step forward.

“Well, since all I can see right now in front of me is a self-centered prick, I guess I would be the voice of reason,” Sam says, pulling himself to his full height and staring the other man down.

“Why you…” John exclaims, self-righteous fury burning in his eyes and fists clenching as if he were about to strike.

“Go ahead old man, make my day.” Sam stares him down, fully prepared to deck him one if he makes a move.

John seems to barely restrain himself from charging him like a wild beast. They stand there poised, glaring each other down and neither giving up an inch.

“You think just because you popped a couple of ghosts down in Cajun county that makes you better than me?” John snarls. “You leave us high and dry for two days without backup then you show your face here and think you know best?”

“Yeah, ‘bout that,” Sam doesn’t bother to disguise his triumphant smirk. “I’ve actually figured out what we’re dealing with here. Now, if you’d kindly stand down from my face, we can talk like adults, what do you say?”

John eyes him dangerously for a second. If looks could kill, Sam thinks, he’s sure he would have been disintegrated by now. Finally, after the mother of all glare-downs, John concedes the tie.

Fifteen minutes and two shots of whiskey later, both John and Sam are sitting at a table in the town’s bar, decidedly more civilized in their reluctant cease-fire.

“So, one of the Keres, ancient Greek spirits of violent death,” John grunts. “How do you figure?”

“I knew the description Dean gave me of that thing sounded familiar,” Sam explains. “But it was only earlier this morning that I made the connection. It was a quote from Hesiod’s ‘Shield of Heracles’, where he depicts the Spirit of the Death-Mist as a gnarled, clawed woman with swollen knees. So not just one of the Keres, but actually Akhlys herself, the oldest and most powerful, said to have existed even before the dawn of time.”

“A goddess,” John shakes his head , trying to take it in. “That would explain the ability to control time.”

“Niece of Chronos, the personification of time, and one of the daughters of the Night, that’s why she can only manifest after dark. During the day she can only tap into people’s fears and weaken them so that she can reap their souls later on.”

“So this is what we know so far,” John recaps. “Old vengeful goddess, she feeds on the souls of those who are afraid – the greater the fear, the stronger she becomes – is able to create a time bubble to keep people trapped and controls the black mist that can be counteracted by iron and salt, but the mist is not actually one of her forms but more of an… instrument, you said?”

“A manifestation of intent, more like, something she can conjure up from the very fabric of reality, from the matter around her.”

“So you can’t kill her by killing the mist,” John says.

“Actually, you can’t actually kill the mist either, just keep it at bay. Salt and iron, among other elements, are expressions of intent as well, translated into matter. The intent of order and creation as opposed to chaos and destruction. They can only repel, but never truly annihilate each other, because a balance must be kept.”

“Well, that’s all fine and dandy, but how do we get rid of her then?” John asks. 

Sam spares him an annoyed glance. 

“Pagan gods aren’t easy to kill, but they can be killed, or at least neutralized for a while,” Sam explains. “Stabbing them usually does the trick, with a weapon wrought from a certain element or material that is affiliated to them. I’m not sure what the particular item in this case is, but I can check through my records when I get back to the inn.”

“Wait, are you saying that you’ve actually killed a pagan god before?” John looks at him in surprise.

“There’s more to ‘Cajun county’ than meets the eye,” Sam can’t help the snark.

“Other than smartass southerners?” John quips.

If Sam were indeed from the South, he thinks he would be really offended right about now.

“So, that’s it?” John gets back on track. “We stab it with a knife and it’s all done?”

“Not exactly,” Sam admits.

“Figures it wouldn’t be that easy,” mutters John under his breath.

“We have to find her first, then draw her out into her corporeal form.”

“And how do we go about that?”

“Well, that’s the kicker,” Sam sighs. “Tradition says that Keres only show up during times of war or other natural disasters, like carrions, preying on leftovers of the carnage. But this right here, it doesn’t make any sense. Why would a Greek goddess attack a small town in the middle of nowhere out of the blue? Better yet, what is she even doing here? She’s not native to this continent, I’d even go as far as say she’s gone way off the beaten track for this. So somebody must have brought her here, accidentally or on purpose, she must have been summoned somehow. The only way to force her to materialize is to recreate the original summoning, or find the object she is attached to. That’s what we need to look for.”

“Perhaps something the old colonists brought along with them from the Old World?” John muses.

“Or simply a trinket bought from a recent trip to Europe,” Sam shrugs. “It could be anything.”

“Well then, we should get started on that, we’ve got a lot of ground to cover.”

“And I’ll try to figure out the logistics of our weapon.” Sam says, and without another word, he downs the last of his drink and gets up from the table.

~

“What the fuck was that back there?” Dean intercepts Sam as he makes his way to the duffel bag that’s sitting locked in his Harley’s trunk. There was no way Sam was going to leave precious artifacts just lying around the inn for civilians to play with.

Dean’s eyes are blazing beneath his furrowed brow, and Sam is momentarily distracted by the way sunlight brings out that particular emerald hue in his irises.

“What?” he asks in confusion.

“The way you just ripped into my Dad like that in front of the others,” Dean says in a low voice, and Sam forgets instantly about his distraction.

“Well, how about the way he was yelling at you for no reason, huh?” Sam asks, all his previous irritation resurfacing. “Weren’t you a bit upset about that too?”

“What goes on between me and my father is none of your business, Sam.” Dean states coldly, and Sam feels like he’s just been slapped in the face. “I’ve only known you for, what, a couple of days? And our little rough and tumble in the haystack last night doesn’t give you the right to come traipsing into my personal life thinking you know best.”

Sam is left reeling for a second, and his stomach twists painfully at the rejection in Dean’s voice. Butting heads with John had always been par for the course, but he’s always had Dean on his side. To see them now as a united front against him, even a Dean who doesn’t know who he is, hurts more than he’s willing to admit. He schools his features into a blank mask and says through his teeth:

“Is that what you think I was doing?”

“Sure looked like it to me.”

“So you actually enjoy being treated like shit for things that aren’t your fault?”

“What I don’t ‘enjoy’, Sam, is you treating me like I’m a fucking damsel in distress. I don’t need you to swoop in and fight my battles for me and I certainly don’t need to listen to you insulting my Dad. You don’t know us and you have no right to interfere!”

“Well, fuck this!” Sam snaps. “Have it your way then, I don’t even know why I bothered.”

He turns on his heels and stalks towards his motorbike. Dean huffs and strides pointedly in the other direction.

Fuck Dean and his fucking blind faith in John. Fuck it how even fifteen years younger than him, his brother can still make Sam feel like a total shit, when he is only trying to help. He thought he was past this already. Fuck his life!

He leans against his Harley, resisting the urge to kick at something and rummages in his pocket after his pack of cigarettes. Fuck, it’s like being sent back in time has reverted him to a damn teenager all over again. He needs to pull himself together. He can’t afford to be distracted by things he knows damn well he can’t change.

“Sam,” a voice distracts him from his internal rant.

He turns his head and sees the woman who’s ridden with him into town last night, standing a bit awkwardly to the left. She’s wearing a new dress, still a flowery one, and now that he’s taking the time to look closer, the woman is actually very pretty, with long brown hair and blue eyes, the short dress showing off her legs.

“Oh, hi,” he wracks his brain for a second. “Lydia, right?”

The woman smiles and takes a step closer.

“I kinda forgot to thank you for helping me out last night,” she says tentatively.

“That’s alright,” Sam concedes. “You looked like you were in a hurry.”

“It’s just…” she pauses for a moment, chewing on her lower lip. “My mom, she’s a diabetic. We left in such a hurry to the shelter yesterday that I didn’t even notice I’d forgotten the insulin kit at home, so when she had an attack and I couldn’t do anything to help her, I panicked, okay? And I ran straight home to get the kit, there was still time till sundown. At least I thought so. If you hadn’t come…”

“It’s okay,” Sam tells her. “I’m glad I was able to help.”

“She’s the only family I’ve got left,” the woman almost whispers with a faraway look in her eyes. Some of the desperation from yesterday starts to show on her face. “With everything else going on, I couldn’t lose her too.”

“I know how you feel,” Sam murmurs, drawn by her confession. “I have a brother. If something happened to him, I don’t know what I’d do.” _‘Sure I do’_ , he thinks bitterly. _‘I’d go on a demon blood bender and spring the Devil from his cage.’_

“Thank you,” the woman repeats. “For getting it.”

Sam gives her a rueful smile.

“You got any more of those?” she asks, nodding towards his cigarette.

“Sure,” he answers and holds out the pack and the lighter to her.

Lydia takes one and lights it between her lips.

“Mind if I join you?” she asks.

“Not at all,” Sam answers, glad for the distraction.

They smoke in silence for a minute, then Lydia asks:

“We’re all going to die, aren’t we?”

Sam spins his head towards her with a hard look.

“No,” he states determinedly. “No one else is going to die if I have anything to say about it.”

“But what can you do?” Lydia asks shakily. “What can anyone do against… this?”

“The Winchesters and I are here to help,” Sam says ( _and doesn’t it just drive a stake through his guts to highlight that disparity again?_ ). “We’ve actually got a lead on what’s been causing this, John is going to explain it to you all at Town Hall. We’re gonna put an end to it. All we need is to find out more information about anything strange, any object brought to this town recently that might have triggered the attack.”

“Tell me how I can help,” Lydia straightens with new determination in her eyes. “I used to work at the local grocer’s, so I know everybody here in town. I can help you talk to them.”

So Sam fills her in on what they need to look for.

“I’m gonna go ask around,” she says, stubbing out the cigarette with the sole of her shoe on the pavement. 

“Thanks, Lydia, I really appreciate it,” Sam nods.

“It’s our own life on the line, isn’t it?” she asks with a lopsided smile, before turning around and leaving.

Sam himself shakes his head with a light smile and turns to grab his duffel from the trunk, not noticing the intent look directed at him from the window of the inn where Dean has been standing for the past ten minutes.

~

“Any luck?” John’s voice asks, making Sam look up from the thick, dusty tomes he’s leafing through.

John is leaning casually against the open door, watching him, and Sam has no idea how long he’s been standing there, didn’t even hear him come in. The light from outside is beginning to wane, making it hard to decipher the faded script of the codex he’s currently translating.

“I think so,” Sam leans back in his chair, rubbing tiredly at his eyes. He’s been going at it for hours. 

He reaches a hand towards the reading lamp on the corner of the desk and turns it on, then pushes the codex in John’s direction. It’s pure luck, really, that Sam thought to bring the book along from the stash he’d lifted out of Mickey’s warehouse, or else they’d be well and truly screwed right now.

John takes two steps towards the desk and looks at the hand drawn image of a plant on the page.

“What am I looking at?” he asks.

“ _‘Achlis triphylla’_ , commonly known as vanillaleaf,” Sam answers. “Greek mythology depicts the goddess of the death-mist also as a patron of all poisonous spells and herbs. It is said that once, the goddess Hera asked for her help in making a potion that would kill another god. She intended to use it against Hermes, who’d interfered with her revenge against a poor mortal girl and earned her ire. But Hermes got wind of the plan and, since he was pretty good at magic himself, he cast a spell on the plant Akhlys was trying to grow and rendered its poison useless against all gods except Akhlys herself. This is said to be that very plant,” Sam concludes, pointing at the image from the book. “A knife dipped in the juice extracted from this plant is guaranteed to kill her, or so the text here says.”

“And I guess we don’t have any of that juice just lying around here, have we?” John asks.

“No, vanillaleaf grows on the Northwest Coast of the Pacific, usually around British Columbia or northern California. But get this,” Sam leans over the stack of books, with a gleam in his eye. “Nowadays, because the crushed leaves give off a smell of vanilla, _‘Achlys triphylla’_ is used to make insect repellent and ambiental fresheners for camping trips.”

“What, you mean that bug spray that they sell at gas stations?” John asks incredulously.

“Exactly!” Sam leans back in his chair with a wide grin on his face.

“You gotta be kidding me!” John exclaims, huffing a laugh of his own. “I think I’ve still got a can of that stuff lying around in my trunk.”

“Yep, that’s what we need.”

“Killing ancient Greek goddesses with bug spray,” John repeats. “This job never gets boring.”

Both of them are smiling now, the earlier animosity forgotten.

“Now all we need is to summon her and we can get it over with.”

“How did it go with the townsfolk?” Sam asks.

“I got the mayor to round everybody up and explain what’s going on and what we’re looking for,” John answers. “So far, nobody can think of any ancient artifact they’ve stumbled upon and no one has ever gone on a trip abroad, they can’t afford it. But we’re still looking, somebody has to remember something eventually.”

“How are they holding up?”

John’s face goes grim.

“Six more affected by hallucinations, being tended to at the school,” he answers. “They’re scared out of their minds, but at least they have hope now. We need to put a stop to this soon, or they’ll likely turn against us as well.”

Sam nods and they fall silent for a while.

“Listen, John, about this morning” Sam forces himself to say. “I was a bit out of line, coming between you and your son like that.”

“Yeah, me too,” John says gruffly, looking out the window at the smoke coalescing beyond the barrier around Town Hall. “I didn’t mean to snap at you like that, guess I was just worried sick when Hank told me what happened. I thought…”

He’d thought Dean was dead, Sam hears the unspoken words, and he understands the feeling, oh boy does he ever.

“I had a talk with my son before I left the inn earlier,” John continues, and Sam’s chest tightens, wondering what Dean might have revealed about last night.

But what comes out of the man’s mouth takes him by surprise in an entirely different way.

“You were right,” John admits, still not looking at him.

Sam is speechless. John has never conceded a fight to him their whole lives. But then again, John doesn’t know who he is now.

“I didn’t have all the facts and I let my anger get the better of me,” John confesses. “I’m not gonna lie, that tends to happen more often than not. But it wasn’t fair to Dean.”

“From what I’ve seen, he just wants you to be proud of him,” Sam enunciates slowly.

“And I am,” John says. “It’s been hard on all three of us, but Dean’s always kept it together, kept us together as a family, even when I couldn’t.”

“Maybe you should tell him that,” Sam says softly, careful not to aggravate him again.

“Yeah,” John murmurs, his gaze still faraway. “Maybe I should.”

They sit in silence for a minute, then John finally turns to look Sam in the eye.

“Listen, you wanna grab something to eat? The others were just getting dinner ready when I came in.”

“Sure.” Now that Sam thinks about it, he hasn’t eaten anything all day and he’s actually hungry.

He gets up from the chair and follows John to the audience room converted into an impromptu dining hall. 

He’s gonna enjoy this rare moment of peace while it lasts.

~

_“Saam,” the voice is feminine and playful. “Sammy.” it whispers in his ear this time, like an echo of long forgotten comfort, of days spent in sunlight and warmth._

_Sam leans back into the slender arms that embrace him from behind and sighs: “Jess.”_

_A few feet from where he’s lounging on the sand, the ocean waves ebb and flow against each other in ever changing patterns. The sky is grey, but there’s no chill in the air yet, just the palpable electricity of an oncoming storm. It’s oddly peaceful._

_“Sammy,” she murmurs his name once again and kisses his neck below the left ear._

_“You never call me that,” Sam smiles, gazing ahead through half-closed lids._

_“You’re right,” she says, the smile audible in her voice. Then the arms around his waist seem to shift, the body pressed against him hardening, taut plains of muscle and sharp angles fitting against his own like puzzle pieces. “That’s always been me,” Dean’s voice speaks in a whiskey-rough rumble against his neck, before teeth sink themselves into the sensitive skin there._

_Sam gasps, and the strong arms tighten around him, something small and pointy digging between Sam’s shoulder blades where Dean’s amulet should be._

_“Where did you go, Sammy?” Dean asks between bites and hot, wet swipes of his tongue that make Sam feel too hot in his own skin. “I can feel you further from me than before.”_

_Sam feels an inexplicable pang of grief at the words._

_“I’m sorry,” he whispers and closes his eyes. “I’m sorry for betraying your trust.”_

_“Shh, Sammy, it’s okay,” Dean soothes. “Just tell me where you are and I’ll come get you.”_

_“What do you mean?” Sam frowns, something niggling at the back of his mind. ”You’re here.”_

_“Just tell me,” the voice whispers in his ear like a promise, a song of redemption for his sins, and the palms resting on his chest and stomach squeeze him even more._

_Suddenly the fog lifts from Sam’s mind and his eyes snap open with a flinch._

_“You’re not Dean.” he says with absolute certainty._

_“Hmm, yeah, you’re right,” the voice says and at the same moment, the fingers of Dean’s hand dig hard into Sam’s belly._

_“Where did you run to this time, Sammy?” the Devil asks. “I know you’re playing hard to get, but this is ridiculous.”_

_Sam grits his teeth and tries to struggle away, but the arms around him are steel, holding tight. The fingers are digging harder still, like they’re trying to claw through his flesh, and Sam’s frantic mind realizes that it may not be far from the truth._

_“You haven’t considered my proposal yet, have you?” Lucifer asks, with Dean’s voice._

_“No!” Sam grunts. “Never.”_

_The fingers have finally breached his skin and are sinking ruthlessly through the layers of flesh into his body. Sam lets out a painful scream of agony, and the Devil just laughs in his ear._

_“Are you sure I can’t persuade you to reconsider?” he taunts._

_“Do what you want, you son of a bitch,” Sam gasps through the pain. “But I’m never gonna say ‘yes’.”_

_“Oh, we’ll just see about that,” Lucifer says as he grabs a fistful of Sam’s guts and starts to twist._

~

Sam makes his way to the small kitchen of Town Hall, bypassing the lumps of sleeping locals strewn across the floor. He’s still jittery after Lucifer’s nightly visit, his stomach rolling with phantom pain and his body tense as hell. He needs a drink, he needs to cleanse the sickening aftertaste of the Devil using his brother’s hands to tear him to pieces, he needs to scrub his eyelids raw and drown out the memory of blood.

He’s just rummaging through one of the cabinets, hoping to find a lost bottle in there somewhere, when somebody touches his arm. Sam jumps back and turns swiftly around, but there’s no threat there, just a little girl standing two feet away and startled by his outburst. He’s seen her around the Hall earlier today, but never paid her much mind in the throng of locals milling about.

“Hello,” she gives him a tentative smile.

“Um, hi,” Sam manages, willing his body to stand down.

“Did you have a bad dream?” she asks with the kind of innocence only children her age can muster.

“Yeah,” he sighs, shaking his head. _‘You don’t know the half of it and I hope you never will,’_ he thinks.

“I have them too,” the girl says. “My mommy used to say that a warm glass of milk always puts you back to sleep. It doesn’t work for me anymore, but maybe it’ll work for you.”

Sam has a pretty good idea why her mother isn’t around to tuck her in anymore, and it’s just another pang of guilt to add to his failure. He should’ve solved this case by now, he should’ve saved these people. Now he isn’t sure he can even save himself anymore.

Before he has a chance to protest, the girl has already opened the fridge and pulled out a carton of milk, handing it to him.

“Yeah, thanks,” he says awkwardly, and reaches for the container, when his eyes catch a glimpse of an odd looking stone dangling from the girl’s wrist.

“What’s your name?” he asks, instincts now piqued.

“Melissa,” she says brightly, with a smile.

“Nice to meet you,” he answers. “I’m Sam.”

He drops down on his haunches to be at eye level with the girl and asks in the friendliest manner he can manage:

“That’s an interesting bracelet you’ve got there, Melissa. Can I have a look?”

“Sure,” the girl reaches out her arm again.

It’s a braided string bracelet, the sort of colorful thing you can make on your own at home, and it’s threaded through a white marble amulet with the image of a rising sun sculpted on its surface, surrounded by a barely legible inscription. The lines are well worn and the entire thing looks pretty old.

“Melissa, are you okay?” a man’s voice prompts from behind.

Sam turns to see Mayor Harris entering the kitchen, and, right, now he remembers. Melissa is his daughter.

“Yeah, daddy,” she answers. “I was just showing Sam my bracelet.”

“Melissa,” Sam goes on. “Where did you get that amulet?”

“I found it by the lake two weeks ago, when I went on a picnic with mommy,” she answers. “She said I could keep it, and made me the bracelet.”

From the corner of his eye, Sam can see the wave of sadness passing over the Mayor’s face at the mention of his wife. 

“Do you mind if I borrow it for a while?” the question is directed at both father and child. “It could be important.”

“Sure, I don’t mind, but bring it back, please? It was a present from mommy.”

“I only need the amulet here, actually,” Sam says. “You can keep the bracelet if you want.”

“Thanks Sam!” she says, the smile returning to her mouth.

She unknots the colorful string and hands Sam the amulet.

“Why don’t you go find your sister, honey?” Harris says. “It’s late.”

With a peck to her dad’s cheek, the girl disappears down the hall with a cheerful “Bye, Sam!”

“Do you think that’s it?” the Mayor asks, eyeing the small stone dubiously. “What we’ve been looking for?”

“I don’t know yet,” Sam says, squinting at the inscription on the amulet. “But it’s definitely something.”

~

“The west side of the barrier was breached again,” John looks haggard and worn as he slumps into the armchair. “She’s getting stronger. We’ve got to end this, and soon.”

Sam heard the gunshots earlier and watched from the window of the small office as John and three other men fought the black smoke, ready to intervene, but they were handling it just fine on their own, and he’d been onto something, for the first time in days he was so close.

Sam gets up from behind his desk and holds out the small amulet to John.

“You found it?” the man immediately perks up. “How?”

“The Mayor’s daughter, she had it all along,” Sam answers.

“You’re sure this is it?”

Sam points to the symbol etched into the stone.

“This right here, is the sign of Hemera, goddess of the rising sun, sister and opposing element to Akhlys,” he explains. “And the inscription around it, _‘sixteenth day of the fiftieth month’_ , is a quote from a sonnet dedicated to her virtues.”

Sam hadn’t recognized the sign at first; but the words had stuck with him and reminded him of that old dusty collection of texts in Bobby’s library that Sam had used one summer to brush up on his ancient Greek. Sam remembers reading that particular sonnet while he was lounging on the porch with a beer, watching his brother halfway under the hood of the Impala, tinkering with the engine. The sun would catch onto ripples of Dean’s sweaty skin and Sam had thought it oddly fitting, to read praise dedicated to the sun while in front of him stood the closest thing he had ever seen to a god. 

“But it’s not a symbol of Akhlys herself,” John counters. “So how does it fit in?”

“You see this oval dent here?” Sam asks, turning the amulet on its other side. “There’s something missing from it. I think it was a stone of some kind. And, if my guess is right, the missing piece was a gem meant to symbolize the power of Akhlys. During the era when these myths were in full swing, the Greeks used to craft good luck charms reuniting symbols of opposed gods, to signify the balance of all things, the dichotomy between life and death, day and night, order and chaos that allows progress to prevail.”

“And since this Hemera is Akhlys’ rival, you think the base of the amulet was meant to contain the power of the gem, to counteract it?”

“It’s the best lead we’ve got,” Sam says.

“So what happened to the stone, then?” John asks.

“The girl said she found it on the edge of Pelican Lake, a couple of miles from here, about the time the disappearances began. Somehow, it has to be related.”

“Only three hours left till morning,” John says. “Then we’ll go check it out.”

~

“What is _up_ with these Greek bitches and Minnesota?” Dean huffs, turning the marble amulet around in his hands. “Are they having convention week here or what?”

They met with Dean to fill him in on the last developments this morning, and now the two of them are waiting in front of the inn for John to make the final arrangements before the three of them leave together to investigate the lake shore.

“Actually, that is pretty strange,” Sam muses, remembering the two Nereids in the forest just a few days ago. Now that he thinks about it, there’s definitely something fishy going on here. If he weren’t tied up with his plan to go back to 2012, he’d definitely look into it. Maybe he’ll pass the tip over to John, let him handle it…

“Hi, Sam,” a woman’s voice greets him, catching him by surprise. He sees Lydia standing to the side, smiling at him. She’s wearing a pair of tight fitting blue jeans today and a simple white top that fits snugly around her breasts.

“Dean,” she nods her head towards his brother, almost as an afterthought, and then ignores the leer he’s throwing at her in order to refocus on Sam.

“Hey, Lydia,” Sam greets her back. “Had any luck?”

“I’m sorry, Sam,” her smile dims a little. “I talked to some people, asked around, but nobody’s messed with any pagan rituals or seen any strange objects around town lately.”

“That’s okay,” Sam tells her. “You did good.”

She beams at the praise.

“We’ve actually got a lead of our own,” Sam gestures towards the amulet in Dean’s hands.

Lydia takes one look at the stone and promptly all the color seems to drain from her face.

“Where did you get that?” she asks, voice tinged with confusion and a bit of fear.

“Wait, you’ve seen this before?” Dean promptly fixes a piercing gaze on her.

“Is that what’s been causing all this?” she starts babbling frantically. “But how, how did it get back here?...”

“Lydia, take it easy now,” Sam pulls out the soothing voice he always uses on witnesses and traumatized victims. “Just tell us everything you know about it, okay?”

John has meanwhile got back to them and is currently standing to the side, listening intently.

“It was a necklace, a present, okay?” she starts to say. “My boyfriend bought it for me at the Spring Fair near Nashwauk this year. It only cost him two bucks at most, there was a whole pile of them, the same model, a guy was selling them out, and Jeremy wanted to surprise me, said he liked how it brought out my eyes, the lying bastard.”

“So it didn’t actually bring out your eyes?” Dean smirks ironically at her.

“No, I caught him cheating on me with my best friend two days after,” she bites out, sending a glare Dean’s way.

“So what happened to the necklace?” Sam tries to bring her back on track.

“I threw it into the lake,” she says. “I broke up with him and I threw it away, couldn’t stand the sight of it anymore.”

“So it must have washed up on shore,” John murmurs in the background.

“When did this happen?” Sam asks, spurred on by the unexpected breakthrough.

“Um, it was sometime in April, I guess?” she answers uncertainly, a step away from panic. “On the third or fourth?... How can that cheap knock-off be responsible for all this?”

“Lydia, I need you to focus and remember something for me, okay?” Sam cuts off her rant. “Did it have a stone here, in the middle? What did it look like?”

“Yeah, it was a black oval stone, but if you tipped it in the sun just right, it had these blue veins running through it, whirling inside like ink on the water or… Oh, god! Like smoke!... Oh my god, it’s all my fault, isn’t it? I brought it here.”

“No, Lydia,” Sam takes her upper arms in his hands and looks into her frightened eyes. “None of this is your fault. You didn’t know what it was, you couldn’t have known, so don’t you dare blame yourself for this, okay?”

She sniffs once and nods her head jerkily, clearly still unconvinced.

“What about the man who sold it?” John pipes up, taking a step towards them. “What did he look like?”

“I… I don’t know?” Lydia turns to him. “I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Anything you can remember,” Sam prompts gently. “Anything at all.”

She pauses for a second, thinking it over, then says:

“He was dressed like those circus looking types, you know? The ones who announce the shows, all loud and boasting and ‘Step right up’… He had this awful accent - that I do remember – fake Russian or Hungarian or something, he kept saying those were authentic amulets of Pythia and they’d bring health and fortune to those who wear them. Jeremy just thought it was funny. I mean, they were only a couple of bucks, for fuck’s sake, they were obviously fake, right?”

“Is there anything else you remember about him?” John insists.

“Well, I think he had one of those fake moustaches, the really lame ones, but I’m not sure, I might be confusing him with someone else, there were a lot of guys in costumes there…” she keeps talking, but Sam doesn’t hear her anymore.

 _‘You son of a bitch,’_ Sam’s mind is reeling. _‘Gotcha!’_

“So she threw the pendant in the lake, the stone broke off from the fixture with the binding symbols and, what? That evil bitch just popped free?” Dean asks, forcing Sam to get back to the matters at hand.

“I guess,” he nods distractedly.

John’s taken Lydia to the side, whispering something meant to reassure, but clearly wanting to get rid of her as soon as possible.

“What I can’t figure is how we’re gonna summon her without the stone,” Dean goes on. “If it’s lying on the bottom of that lake, then we’re screwed.”

“Not necessarily,” Sam says. “The fixture of the pendant itself should have enough juice to get the job done if we time it just right.”

“Then let’s go,” John says, joining them with a determined gleam in his eyes, the look of a hunter closing in on his prey. “We’ve got a job to finish.”

~

Sam knew this was a bad idea. Why the hell did he let John call the shots on this one and go in blind, without a backup plan? Now the three of them are standing pinned in place on the lake shore by tendrils of black smoke, unable to move an inch, and coalescing right in front of them from the mist is the curvy, jean clad figure of none other that Lydia herself. _‘Fuck.’_

“Hello there, boys,” she smirks, blue eyes landing on the marble amulet John is still clutching in his right hand. “You called?”

“You bitch!” Dean’s outrage makes itself known. “You’ve been playing us from the start!”

“Well, Dean, it’s not my fault you fell for it. I must say, I expected more of a challenge from you lot. Now I feel cheated.”

“So Lydia never even existed, huh?” Sam glares at her, mentally cursing his own stupidity.

“Oh, this little hussy?” Akhlys shakes her head with a smile. “She was real alright, up until she threw the pendant in the lake and finally freed me. After that, I needed a body, and what better choice than the last human who had touched my stone?”

She casually pulls a small black stone out of her front pocket and presses it lovingly to her lips.

“For so many centuries I’ve been trapped by this little rock, just waiting for the right moment, biding my time, and now I’m free to roam the lands once more.”

She lets the stone fall to the ground and kicks the sharp heel of her shoe against it. The gem shatters with a crunch in tiny, jagged pieces.

“Well, guess again,” John snarls at her. “You’re gonna have to go through us first.”

“My pleasure,” she smiles sweetly at him, raising her hands in the air.

The black smoke curls tighter around Sam’s chest, squeezing painfully at his lungs, and he can hear both Dean and John gasping for air next to him. One by one, other figures start to materialize from the mist, specters of pain and regret, of loss both present and past – Azazel. Ruby. Lilith. Lucifer. They smirk at him, whispering words that chill him to the core.

_“We welcome you, brother.”_

_“You’re one of us.”_

_“The biggest monster of all.”_

“No!” Sam clenches his jaw, struggling against the preternatural bonds holding him still. If he could only reach his knife, the one he’d dipped into the poison… But his arms feel numb, his thoughts lightheaded from lack of air.

Others are crowding against him now, Jess with her insides dangling out of the cut on her belly, Ellen and Jo charred almost beyond recognition, Madison with half her face blown off by his own bullets, Dean torn to shreds by hellhounds, all the people he has failed, all those who have died because of him.

_“You did this to me.”_

_“Your fault.”_

_“Tell me again how pretty I am.”_

Jess presses her gaping wound against his side, while Madison leans her cracked open skull on his cheek. _“Touch it, touch me.”_

“Get away from me!” Sam shouts, trying to break free.

Above the roar of voices in his head, he can hear laughter, and Lydia’s face looks down at him with a crooked smile. He doesn’t even know how he got down on the ground. He can’t feel his legs.

“I’m really sorry about this, Sam,” she says, a rueful tint coloring her lips. “I liked you better than most, wanderer lost in time. I could have taken you as mine, forever.”

“Go fuck yourself!” he snarls at her, one hand desperately fumbling to reach the sheath of his knife.

The smile flickers on her face, smooth skin alternating with dry, decayed flesh, sapphire eyes becoming hollow grooves oozing yellow puss. Swaying back and forth between Lydia’s face and her true form, Akhlys reaches a hand towards Sam’s chest and pushes the sharp claws into his skin, just above his heart.

Sam gives a hoarse shout as he feels his flesh part around her fingers. His mind flashes back to the Woman in White he fought back in Jericho, to Lucifer appearing in his dream last night, remembers dozens of creatures that have carved themselves into his skin like this throughout the years. The pain is overwhelming.

“I can taste your fear.” the monster in front of him hisses.

And then his hand finally closes around the hilt of his knife. With a last twinge of strength, he grips tight and shoves the blade forward into her chest.

For a second, everything seems to stop, Akhlys’ body suspended above him like a puppet whose strings have just been cut. Then, with an ear shattering wail, her body twists around the knife, contorts in futile rage and finally explodes into a cloud of smoke. The faces of Sam’s other tormentors flicker away and then there’s nothing left but silence.

 _‘I did it,’_ he thinks numbly, a strange kind of detachment taking over his whole being. The pain in his chest is gone. Actually, he can’t feel pretty much of anything right now.

“Dean…” he tries to say, but he can’t tell for sure his lips are moving. He blinks once. Twice.

 _‘Oh, right’_. He gets it now. This is it.

Sam closes his eyes and doesn’t open them again.

~

_They say that darkness is the absence of light. But Morningstar burns brighter than any sun, so bright in fact that once beheld, the souls who gaze upon his face will never see light ever again, just the shadow of his afterimage stenciled into their core. So maybe darkness is not the absence of light, but rather an overabundance of it, the light that shines brightest of them all._

_“Sammy,” the low, sultry voice flows over him like waves of silk. “You know you’re not getting away that easily.”_

_And then the majestic winged figure in front of him bends to press its lips against his. Sam tries to escape, tries to shrug off this new violation, but he has nowhere to go. He’s trapped within the light._

_Ripples of liquid fire seem to pour into his mouth, down his throat, scalding him from the inside, and he can hear himself whimper in pain._

_“I see you now,” the voice reverberates inside his skull, even as the lips keep forcing his own apart. “You’ve run back into the past.”_

_Hot acid spreads through his veins, and his entire body feels like it’s on fire. He needs to get away, he needs to run before the angel finally figures it out…_

_“That’s it, just show me when,” Lucifer’s voice whispers in anticipation._

_But the pain has reached its peak, and there is nothing the angel can do to keep him here anymore. Sam feels himself being ripped from the impossible brightness, then falling, falling into blessed dark, the edges of his soul pulsating in the staccato rhythm of a heart…_

~

Sam takes a huge gulping breath, cold air grating against his windpipe and filling his lungs to the brim. His body arches off the ground and he swears he can feel every last cell in his body replenish itself with electricity, with life. _‘What the fuck? What just happened?’_

Sound, smell and touch assault him at the same time, and for a second he feels overwhelmed with sensation, before he tethers himself firmly in his own skin and dares to open his eyes. 

Above him, the figure of Dean is kneeling on the bumpy ground, amulet dangling from his neck, hands fisted into his bloodied shirt so tight that his knuckles are sharp points of pressure on Sam’s chest. His eyes are round with shock, rimmed with redness and grief and so damn beautiful that Sam’s breath threatens to leave him once again. 

“You,” he tries to say, but he just seems stuck, unable to make his brain work. His hands scramble at the tattered fabric covering Sam’s chest as they pat him down, searching for the wound, trying to make sense of it all. Sam’s skin tingles at the touch.

“You were…” he chokes on the word again, and seems to waver between panic and relief.

Sam raises a hand and gently runs his fingers across his brother’s cheek, and just like that Dean is on him, devouring his mouth like he’s possessed, pushing and prodding and shoving his tongue down Sam’s throat, nails scraping at his chest and, _‘yeah, that’s it! Oh God, give it all to me.’_ He needs to cleanse himself of the memory of light and magma and helplessness, he needs to feel alive, to feel _Dean_ , to drink him down until there’s nothing left but Dean inside him and around him and against him, wrapped up in every fiber of his soul. His mind spins and splinters, he takes and pushes back tenfold, worships Dean’s mouth with his teeth, his tongue, his hunger. He’s here, he got away, and he can _feel_ …

The groan coming from just a few feet beyond snaps them out of it faster than a bucket of ice. _‘Shit! Dad!’_ Sam’s mind supplies. How the fuck did he forget about the man? He’s lying _just there_ , and Sam was ready to fuck his brother’s brains out, right in front of him… _‘Jesus!’_

Dean scrambles up and off him like he’s been burnt, and staggers to John’s side, who seems to be coming around now. At least he didn’t wake up sooner, or he would’ve gotten an eyeful. This is a whole new level of fucked up, even for Sam, and he’s seen plenty.

“Is it done?” John asks groggily, sitting up and blinking owlishly.

“Yeah, Sam killed her,” Dean answers, pointedly not looking his way.

“What happened to you?” John’s eyes zero in on the torn and bloody shirt clinging to him in wet patches.

“I scratched her back and she scratched mine too, a bit,” he manages to say. _‘Damn, but the lies just keep on coming,’_ he notes with contempt. “Nothing serious,” he speaks out loud, and thankfully, Dean chooses not to call his bullshit.

“Oh, crap,” Dean’s voice makes both their heads snap up.

His brother’s face is grim and pale as he looks over the expanse of the lake in front of them. On the flat surface of the water, there are dozens of bodies of all shapes and sizes just floating around, catching the faint light of the moon, and more of them keep popping to the surface as they watch. The missing people, all twisted in varying states of decay. Sam’s stomach turns unpleasantly at the sight.

And then Lucifer’s words come back to him, chilling his bones with a new kind of dread. _‘He caught my trail, he’s on his way here right now!’_ Whatever the angel did to bring him back, it set up some kind of beacon, got Sam back on his radar. Even if he doesn’t know exactly where Sam is, he’s got a pretty good idea and it’s not gonna take him long to find him now. _‘Shit, shit, shit! I gotta get out of here, I can’t risk leading him to Dad and Dean,’_ his mind whirls on a constant loop. He needs to set his plan in motion right the fuck now, he can’t afford to wait any longer.

“That bitch sure left us one hell of a mess to clean up,” Dean is saying.

“We’ll deal with it in the morning,” John decrees, with one last glance at the lake. “You coming?” he turns towards Sam, raising an eyebrow at his petrified stance.

“Yeah, tomorrow,” he mumbles, and trudges after the others through the trees.

He’s planning on being long gone by then.

~

For all intents and purposes, Sam is in deep shit at the moment. He has never thought of himself as a particularly lucky guy, not with all the crap life’s thrown at him so far, but being flung back into the past, killed and resurrected, one inch from being caught by the Devil himself and at the same time trying to ignore those pesky flashbacks of his brother’s skin under his hands certainly haven’t improved on his optimism. To top it all, there’s currently a fifty inch wide maw lined with two rows of sharp teeth trying to bite his face off. _‘It can’t get any better than this,’_ he mentally snorts, while straining to reach for the shotgun a couple of feet away on the ground.

He’d hightailed it out of Orr as soon as John and Dean were busy enough explaining everything to the locals that they weren’t paying any attention to him. He’d packed his duffel bag, got on his bike and taken the highway straight out of town, past the rusty road sign, noticing that the spell keeping the time bubble in place had broken with Akhlys’ death. A quick mental review told him that only half a day at most had passed on the outside while he’d been holed up in Orr. He didn’t know whether the time bubble had affected Lucifer’s ability to track him or not, but he did know he had to put as much distance as he could between his family and himself if he wanted to keep them safe. Parting with them without even a last goodbye was hard, but between his own selfishness and Dean’s life, there was really no competition. He’d ridden as far as he could before he had to stop for gas, and there, at the shabby gas station on the side of the road, he’d had his lucky break. On the fifth page of the local newspaper he’d been scanning while gulping down a cup of black coffee, tucked between tips about how to properly prune your garden and ads about penis enlargement, there was an article about a strange animal that looked like a genetics experiment gone bad wreaking havoc on a couple of farms near Fergus Falls. A few cows had been found charred to a crisp just the day before, and one of the farmers claimed he’d seen a large fire breathing beast, half goat, half lion, prowling through his yard at night. Of course, nobody believed him. Sam had promptly identified the creature as a chimera, another Greek mythological beast, and wouldn’t you know it, there was also an article there advertising the arrival of a carnival in the same area two days prior. Sam hadn’t put much stock in Lydia’s words back in Orr, seeing as it had all been a trick to fuck with their heads, but Akhlys had obviously retained Lydia’s memories after taking over her body, or else she wouldn’t have blended in with the locals as well as she did for so long. So the whole story about the guy at the Spring Fair selling her the pendant could have been true. Now, with this new Greek monster showing up on the trail of another circus in town, it all seemed too much of a coincidence not to ping Sam’s radar. And it fell into place perfectly with his own plan, even poetically so. Maybe he could kill two birds with one stone - solve this case and go back home at the same time. Frankly, he was also fed up with these Greek sons of bitches popping up all over the place. So he rode into Fergus Falls, took the time to do a little investigating of his own ( _no need to run into this half cocked, like some people Sam knows_ ), then proceeded to scope out the farms on the edge of town where the creature had last been spotted, armed with the iron machete he needed to chop the thing’s head off. All fine and dandy until the fucking thing decided to leave the cows be for now and make a meal out of him instead. He’d expected to lure the creature into a trap he’d previously set up and then strike when it was temporarily incapacitated, but either the chimera was smarter than it looked or it had smelled him from a few feet afar in his hiding place, because as soon as it showed up, it zeroed in on Sam and came charging straight at him full force.

Now Sam is busy dodging the sharp claws and teeth of the beast, while trying to get a few hits in with his blade. He dropped the shotgun earlier when the chimera shoved him through a fence. _‘Damn, but the bastard is strong.’_

The lights are suddenly coming on in the windows of the farmhouse, and a disgruntled middle aged guy is making his way down the front porch holding a rifle in his hand. He takes one look at the monster and Sam’s obvious predicament and clearly decides fight over flight, because he cocks the gun and takes a shot at it. He misses, though, and Sam is grateful enough that he wasn’t on the receiving end of that bullet himself, when the chimera turns around to face the new threat. The guy stops dead in his tracks, out of ammo now, and the chimera inhales a deep breath and hurls out an arc of fire in his direction. The farmer screams and makes a run for it back towards the house, the creature tensing to leap in pursuit, but Sam takes the opportunity and lunges himself astride its back before it can get away. The chimera roars and tries to buck him off, but Sam grabs a fistful of its huge mane, holding it tight, and brings the machete down on its neck with a powerful swipe. It’s not a clean cut, Sam has to work the blade repeatedly into the creature’s flesh, while the body under him thrashes in its death throes, but after a few grueling seconds, he gets the job done. The chimera’s head rolls to the side and Sam stands up off the motionless body, panting with the effort.

He turns his head towards the farmhouse and sees the owner stock still on the porch, staring at him with wide terrified eyes and still clutching his gun. For a second there, Sam thinks the man is going to shoot him, but, instead, his knees buckle under him and he falls to the ground in a heap, gun and all, unconscious.

“Pff,” Sam shakes his head in amusement. Although, he can imagine what a sight he must look right now, covered in blood from head to toe and holding that machete in his hand like something out of a cheap slasher movie.

He salts and burns the chimera’s carcass, checks once to see if the farmer is still alive (just fainted, he concludes), then picks up his gear and gets the hell out of Dodge.

Another one down. Now all that’s left is the ‘puppeteer’ himself.

~

Sam walks out of the bathroom in a cloud of steam, not even bothering with a towel around his waist, just glad to be rid of the layers of grime and blood he’d been drenched in. He mentally congratulates himself for picking this cheap-ass motel on the side of the highway where he was able to sneak back in undetected earlier, and not the one downtown he had initially considered. He starts making his way to his duffel to find some clean clothes, when he stops dead in his tracks.

Right there, sitting on the edge of his bed casually, is none other than Dean, who is also aiming a gun at him, again. _‘Damn it.’_ And his brother is pointedly checking him out, too.

Sam puts his hands on his naked hips and turns fully towards him, with a smirk.

“Like what you see?” he asks teasingly, a lifetime of close quarters having cured him of any traces of modesty in regards to his brother.

“You left in kind of a hurry, Sam,” Dean replies, nonplussed. “And we still have unfinished business, you and I.”

“How did you find me?” Sam asks, actually curious.

“Greek bitches and Minnesota, Sam,” his brother smirks but his gun stays still. “Don’t think I didn’t notice your thinky face when I mentioned that to you. So when I saw the article in the paper, the chimera, I knew you’d be close by.”

“I’m impressed,” Sam acknowledges sincerely, feeling a wave of pride for his brother. “But why don’t you put that gun down so we can talk?”

“You mean, if I put a bullet through your head right now, you won’t get right back up again?” Dean counters, watching him with an eerie intensity that puts Sam on edge.

Sam drops the smirk.

“Maybe I will, maybe I won’t,” he says carefully. “But you really shouldn’t do that.” The next time Sam dies and comes back to life, Lucifer will be right behind him.

“Why?” Dean inquires genially. “You gonna kill me?”

“You have nothing to fear from me, Dean, I would never hurt you.”

Dean snorts and shakes his head a little.

“I saw you die, Sam,” he says. “And then you got right back to your feet without a scratch. Now, I may not know what voodoo crap you guys get down to in Louisiana, but up here, people don’t just come back from the dead. At least, not those who are human anyway. So what the hell are you?”

Sam flashes back momentarily to a different time, another motel room like this one. _‘If I didn’t know you, I would want to hunt you.’_ The mistrust hurts just the same.

“I am no less human than you are, Dean,” Sam manages to keep his composure. “I am a hunter, just like you. I kill evil things, I’m not one of them.”

_‘I’m not, I’m really not, please believe me.’_

“Then what the hell happened back there?” Dean asks, but now some of the hard edge seems to be gone from him. Maybe he can read the truth in Sam’s eyes. That’s good, because Sam sure as hell can’t lie to him anymore at this point.

“I died,” he finally confesses. “And then, someone brought me back.” Sam turns his head to the side, no longer able to look his brother in the eye. “You don’t know how much I wish I’d stayed that way,” he murmurs.

“But who can do that? And why?”

“He wants something from me.” Sam pauses for a beat. “Something so terrible, you can’t even imagine… But I won’t give it to him, I’d rather die.” Another pause, and then in a barely audible voice: “He just won’t let me.”

Dean gets up from the bed and walks towards him, stopping a few paces out of reach, gun held loosely in his hand and pointing to the floor.

“Is that why you left, then? He’s looking for you?”

Sam nods, but keeps his head turned.

“So who is this guy?” Dean presses. “Demon? Another pagan god, what?”

“Something like that,” Sam mutters. It’s easier to evade the truth if he doesn’t meet Dean’s eyes. He feels more naked right now than his bare skin could account for.

Dean closes the distance between them slowly, and presses his free hand on Sam’s chest, below the anti-possession tattoo, right where Akhlys’ claws had pierced his skin. The touch feels warm and startling and Sam finally turns his head to his brother, but Dean is studying his palm intently, not looking up.

“You don’t get it, Sam,” Dean says stiltedly. “I saw that bitch put her hand through your chest. And then you fuckin’ died, right in front of me. You died… and the only thing I could think about was that I’d been such a dick to you earlier, and you wouldn’t ever wake up, I couldn’t tell you…”

He chokes on whatever he wanted to say further, and the palm presses almost painfully against Sam’s ribs. 

Sam reaches a hand to touch his brother’s face, turning his eyes upward. He sees grief there, and confusion, and for a second those eyes remind him of the ones he’s left behind in 2012. He suddenly needs to wipe that look off his brother’s young face, he isn’t supposed to feel that kind of pain yet, and Sam is an utter shit for having put that there.

He lowers his head slowly, telegraphing every move, and presses his lips against Dean’s. His brother parts his mouth to let him in, but otherwise stays still, not moving an inch. Sam reaches his left hand down and pries the gun out of Dean’s fingers, tossing it to the side.

Dean makes a strangled sound and it’s as if the dam has finally broken, because he suddenly lunges himself at Sam, making him stagger until he’s plastered against the wall, and attacks his mouth hungrily. Sam wraps his arms around his brother drinking him in, feeling the denim of Dean’s clothes rub against his own naked skin. A wave of unadulterated lust sweeps through him, making his hands and mouth and cock strain with the need to possess.

“You son of a bitch,” Dean growls between kisses. “You drive me fuckin’ crazy.”

He bites hard at Sam’s lower lip, then trails his teeth down his throat in a series of sharp nips that falter between pleasure and pain. When Sam tries to reach beneath his brother’s shirts, needing to touch warm skin, Dean lets out a growl and shoves his arms aside, continuing his ministrations downwards still. He opens his mouth over Sam’s heart, right where his hand had been before, and sinks his teeth brutally into his flesh, making Sam jerk and hit his head against the wall.

“Dean,” he moans, thrusting his hips forward, wanting to touch his brother so bad, but letting him call the shots for now.

“Shut up,” Dean grinds out through his mouthful of skin, then bites down again, harder, worrying the abused flesh between his teeth, before he lets go and trails a series of wet, filthy kisses down Sam’s abdomen.

Sam can’t get enough air into his lungs, can barely think through the rush of blood to his head. He clutches tight to his brother’s shoulders and holds on for dear life.

When he feels the drag of his brother’s tongue along his straining length, slowly from root to tip, he lets out a yell and grinds the back of his head harder against the wall. Dean pushes his palms against his hips, holding him still with surprising strength, then takes Sam into his mouth. It’s a good thing too, because Sam has lost any semblance of control over his own body. All he can feel is that talented mouth taking him deeper, sucking him hard with the barest hint of teeth to keep him on edge.

His brother’s done this before, he can tell, and Sam feels a sudden surge of anger through his lust. He dares to take a look down and sees his brother on his knees, sinful lips stretched around his cock, green eyes staring intently up at his face. Sam barely keeps himself from shooting his load right then and tangles his fingers roughly in his brother’s short hair.

“Touch yourself, Dean,” he manages to say through gritted teeth.

Dean slides one hand below the waistband of his jeans and starts to move it up and down, letting out a moan that reverberates through Sam’s dick all the way to the skin on his scalp. He eases his hold on Sam’s hip and tilts his head back a little, an invitation, a request.

Sam growls and starts to thrust his hips forward, pumping his cock into his brother’s mouth, and Dean just takes it, opens up, keeping his eyes fixed on him like a dare, while his hand works faster inside his pants.

And, oh shit, Sam isn’t gonna last. He pushes deep into his brother’s throat and lets himself go just like that, coming so hard that his vision blacks out for a beat.

When he comes back to himself – could have been a second, could have been ages – his brother is licking him clean, pumping his own dick fast and still watching him with those goddamn beautiful eyes blown all the way to black with lust. He shudders and forces his own mouth to speak:

“That’s it, Dean, give it up for me.”

And then his brother throws his head back with a hoarse yell and shoots his load inside his pants, face scrunched up in pleasure and those plump lips so red, so fucking sinful against his flushed cheeks.

Sam grabs him by the arms and hauls him up, his body still limp with aftershocks, and kisses him hard, tasting himself on his lips. He flinches when his oversensitive cock touches the rough fabric of Dean’s pants, already feeling himself harden once more.

After a while, he reaches out, unbuckles Dean’s belt and lowers the zipper slowly. He pulls back from the kiss to catch his brother’s eyes, then pushes his hand inside his damp boxers.

“What do you want, Dean?” he asks, fingers sliding over his brother’s spent cock, trailing through the wetness there.

Dean shudders at the pleasure-pain of the touch, his legs threatening to give out.

“I want you to fuck me,” he says is a low, scraped raw voice, and now it’s Sam’s turn to tremble at the conviction and want he can hear in those words.

He nods minutely and catches his brother’s lips again, kissing him in a slow, unhurried slide of tongues. Now that they’ve taken the edge off their initial frenzy, Sam wants to take his time, to explore.

He peels off the layers of Dean’s clothing, kneels down to take his boots off at one point, all the while dragging his palms over every inch of skin that he reveals. He pushes his brother back towards the bed and Dean stumbles and falls on top of the stark sheets with a yelp. Sam follows him down, pressing against the length of his body, skin blissfully meeting skin, and watches the tint of uncertainty in those emerald eyes as they gaze up at him from beneath their lashes.

“Have you ever done this before?” Sam asks, running his knuckles over the ridge of Dean’s cheekbone.

His brother’s gaze flickers to the side as he mutters “No.” He looks embarrassed now, al the previous bravado stripped down and flung aside.

Sam’s chest constricts for a moment with a wave of affection for this man ( _boy?_ ) lying in his arms. He bends down to catch his lips in a searing kiss and says:

“It’s okay, I’m not gonna hurt you.”

Dean growls somewhere deep in his throat and says:

“Come on, dude, I’m not some wilting flower. Just… do it.”

Sam can’t help the low amused chuckle that escapes his lips. He smiles down at his brother.

“Alright,” he acquiesces. “But if at any point you wanna stop…”

Dean doesn’t even dignify that with a response, just wraps his fingers into Sam’s hair and pulls him down into a hungry kiss.

Sam trails his tongue and lips over his brother’s neck, letting his cheek press into the sharp horns of the golden amulet resting there, wanting the imprint of it on his skin. He takes Dean’s right hand in his and closes his mouth around his fingers, sucking at each one with abandon, then licks and nips his way up to the crook of his elbow, past his shoulder, lingering at his collarbone.

Dean is writhing under him, his cock starting to fill again, and he tries to urge him to go faster, but Sam is calling the shots now, and he’ll be damned if he lets this be just another quick fuck, his brother deserves better. He resumes his exploration on Dean’s left hand, making sure to worship every inch of skin, then follows the trail down his chest with his tongue. He pays extra attention to the few scars he finds along the way, not as many as there will be a few years from now, but still a map of their own dangerous, fucked up lives. Sam knows each and every one of Dean’s scars, some jagged and long, others barely visible in the dim light, small imperfections to which he could tell you the story by heart, so he loses himself in his brother’s taste, his smell, the small wanton sounds he makes when he is touched _just like that_ , commits them all to his mind.

He bypasses the straining flesh of his brother’s cock and keeps licking and biting down his right thigh, feeling the muscle bunch and shift beneath his skin, the fine dusting of hair tickling his nose. He goes all the way down to the sole of Dean’s foot, nipping at each perfectly shaped toe, because there isn’t any part of Dean that isn’t beautiful, and then starts again with the other leg.

By the time he reaches the dip under his brother’s left hipbone, Dean is writhing uncontrollably on the bed, eyes squeezed shut and hands fisted in the sheets. He spreads his brother’s thighs wide and just looks at him for a moment, drinking him in, the sight of this unearthly creature laid out in front of him like the purest temptation imaginable. Dean presses his face into his arm, breath coming faster, and the most delicious blush colors his cheek red, spreading down his neck and over the upper half of his chest, making his freckles stand out in sharp relief.

Sam gulps down on a choked moan, his own untouched cock twitching between his thighs, and buries his nose in the mass of curls between his brother’s legs, inhaling his scent, licking at the traces of come still clinging to the dark strands. Dean spreads his legs wider with a shout and thrusts his hips up, but Sam ignores the wordless plea and lets his brother’s cock strain futilely against his belly, leaking a small pool of precome around the head.

Without warning, Sam grabs hold of Dean’s hips and turns him around on his front, pins him to the mattress and starts licking his way up the underside of his legs, forcing himself to take his time. Now Dean is thrashing in earnest, shouting every insult he knows at Sam, trying to get him to just fuck him already, goddamn it. Sam plasters himself to his brother’s back, twining their fingers together and bites _hard_ at the nape of his neck, sucking a bruise into the skin. Dean’s body suddenly jolts under him with a bitten off scream and Sam knows he just made his brother come again, untouched.

He waits for the aftershocks to subside, nuzzling his brother’s hair, and when Dean’s body goes limp and quiet under his chest, Sam begins to lave kisses across his back, kneading the loose muscles with his hands. 

“You son of a bitch,” Dean whines, muffled by the pillow he’s crushing his face against.

Sam chuckles low in his throat, feeling a little desperate himself right now, his cock gone way past the point of arousal and into pain.

He runs this teeth down the length of Dean’s backbone, kissing every bump. When he reaches Dean’s ass, he puts his hands on the rounded cheeks and spreads them apart, at the same time yanking his brother’s hips up a bit, for better access.

“Wait, what are you…?” Dean raises his head a little panicked, trying to look at what Sam is doing. “Oh shit!” he promptly yelps and lets his head fall back into the pillow when Sam licks a broad stripe across the length of his crack, from balls to the small of his back.

“Fuck!” he mewls into the pillow in a high pitched tone, for which Sam would give him endless teasing if he weren’t currently busy shoving his tongue up his ass.

He licks around the puckered hole, nipping gently at the edges, then gradually works the tip of his tongue inside. Dean is reduced to a series of incoherent yelps and moans now, grinding his ass back into Sam’s tongue, and Sam reaches a hand out blindly over the edge of the bed to where he’d left his duffle earlier. He congratulates himself on his ability to multitask when his hand closes around the small jar of consecrated Tibetan oil he’d picked up from Mickey’s stash. 

He puts one finger inside at first, gauging his brother’s reaction, but Dean isn’t telling him to stop, so after a while he works a second one into his tight hole, then a third, stretching him carefully. Dean is cursing at him again, telling him to get on with it, pushing his ass back on his fingers, and Sam has had enough, his balls feel like they’re one second from bursting in frustration.

He manhandles Dean on his hands and knees and lines himself with his brother’s ass, cockhead slicked up and poking at his entrance.

“Do it,” Dean urges in a strained voice, and Sam lets himself just push.

‘Oh God, so tight.’ He barely keeps himself from thrusting all the way inside. He is not going to hurt his brother. Dean lets out a choked off gasp and tenses under him.

“Shh, it’s okay, just breathe,” Sam whispers, and rubs his hands soothingly across his back.

Dean inhales through the pain and his muscles unclench a bit further. Sam works himself slowly inside his body, watches that tight little hole stretch around his girth and bites the inside of his cheek until he can taste blood to keep himself from coming. When he is finally sheathed completely in his brother’s warmth, he leans forward, balancing himself with a hand on the headboard, and kisses Dean’s shoulder, closing his eyes.

“Alright?” he asks after a minute, feeling his own muscles spasm with restraint.

“Yeah,” Dean whispers shakily, and turns his head around, seeking Sam’s mouth.

Sam lets his tongue trace over his brother’s lips while he pulls halfway out and thrusts inside again. He keeps up the slow, steady rhythm to let his brother adjust and before long, Dean starts to push back against his hips. When Sam changes the angle of his thrusts, Dean makes the most delicious sound and his whole body writhes in startled pleasure.

“Harder,” he groans, and Sam pulls out almost entirely, then slams his cock into Dean’s prostate with every ounce of strength that he can muster. Dean pitches forward and grabs hold of the headboard with both hands.

“Yeah, just like that, fuck me like you mean it” he pants, and for Sam all bets are off.

He digs his fingers into his brother’s hips, spanning them wide and sets up a hard, punishing pace, skin slapping against skin, thighs burning from the exertion and sweat dripping from his forehead down to brother’s back. It’s hot, and messy and it burns Sam from inside out how perfect they just fit, how sex has never felt so good, so much like dying and being reborn all at once. He knows right now that he is never gonna feel it with anyone else but Dean, still he would gladly damn himself for this one taste, this single moment of pure bliss.

He wraps his arms around his brother’s waist and pulls him back against his chest, Dean’s thighs straddling his own, and, god, Sam didn’t think Dean’s body could take him any deeper than it already had. _‘Oh, fuck!’_ He pistons his hips even faster, reaching one hand down to wrap around his brother’s neglected, weeping cock. Dean shouts out a litany of Sam’s name as his movements falter, then his body arches taut and he shoots his load all over Sam’s fingers with a keen, like it hurts him to come again, to squeeze these last drops of ecstasy from his flesh. The sudden grip of vise-like muscles around his cock wring out a hoarse yell out of Sam’s mouth, and he follows his brother over the edge barely a second after, fucking him through the aftershocks until they both crumble sideways in a tangled mess of limbs on the bed.

“Holy shit,” Dean mutters, in a daze, while he is trying to catch his breath.

“Yeah,” Sam agrees, equally fucked out, feeling a big dumb grin spread across his face.

They linger that way for a few minutes, entangled and staring at the ceiling, not knowing where one of them ends and the other begins, before Sam makes himself move and pick up one of Dean’s discarded shirts from the floor. He turns his brother around, giving him a slow lingering kiss, and swallows down his hiss when he wipes the come trickling out of his abused hole. He quickly cleans himself up as well, then rearranges their position so that they’re both lying under the sheets.

“I think I’m gonna pass out now,” Dean mutters into the skin of Sam’s chest.

Sam lets out a tired laugh and drops a kiss to his brother’s hair, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. 

As he listens to Dean’s breath even out, Sam’s thoughts drift inside that timeless space between awareness and sleep. Leaving is gonna hurt like a bitch later on, he knows this moment isn’t his to keep, but for a while, he just wants to let himself pretend.

~

Sam casually makes his way around the colorful stalls, pretending to check out the large poster where a skinny old woman wearing a beaded shawl and holding a glowing crystal ball is smiling creepily at him, above an ad in big white letters for discount palm readings and aura cleansing. He’s surreptitiously eyeing the brownish tent set a few feet to the side, waiting for his target to show up.

He’d left the motel room earlier this morning before the sun even came up, careful not to wake his sleeping brother, and gone straight two towns over, where the newspaper article said the ‘Arcadia Circus’ was set up. _‘Could he be more obvious?’_ Sam snorts again at the name choice. He’d scoped out the place until he spotted the guy he was looking for, perched in front of a stall selling cheap trinkets and magic kits, and after he’d set everything in place, Sam settled himself to wait for the perfect moment to make his move. He wants to get this over with as soon as possible, he can’t stand to be here anymore, and not just because of the clowns prancing and giggling in their hideous get-ups all around the place. Closing that motel room door behind him was one of the hardest things he’d ever had to do, and he just knows this decision will haunt him for the rest of his life. But for now, he’ll give it the patented Winchester treatment for all emotional screw-ups – not think about it until it hopefully goes away on its own. _‘Yep, definitely sticking to that plan.’_

He walks a bit further, to Sirius, The Serpent Tamer’s stall, trying to distract himself by watching a skinny looking dude, with half of his face covered in piercings of all shapes and sizes swallowing two wiry green snakes and having them come back out through his nose, one nostril each. The small group of kids around him are gawping at the show, pulling out their wallets eagerly for an encore. _‘Jesus.’_

Sam is about to turn in the other direction, thinks about checking out that mermaid tank a few stalls further ( _because you never know_ ), when suddenly he’s grabbed by the arm and yanked forcefully between two tents, out of sight.

He turns to face his assailant, hand already on the hilt of his knife, when he recognizes the face glowering at him and a new kind of anger surges through his chest.

“Dammit, Dean, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he grits his teeth in frustration.

“I could ask you the same thing, Sammy,” his brother retorts. “You really thought you could sneak out of that room without me noticing? Your ass isn’t that light, dude, let me tell ya.”

“And maybe I had a damn good reason to -” Sam begins, but stops short as his brother’s words register fully. “Wait, what did you call me?”

“Oh, by the way, you dropped this,” Dean pulls something out of his pocket and chucks it back at Sam.

He catches it by instinct in one hand, without looking at it, but when he turns his hand around, he swears he can feel his heart skip a beat. _The ring!_ Only then does he see that there is something obviously missing from his right middle finger. _Shit. Shit shit shittidy fuck!_

“H- how…?” he turns a pair of confused, bulging eyes towards his nonplussed brother.

“You really gotta stop underestimating me, man,” Dean smirks. “I woulda thought you knew better by now.”

“But how did you…? When…?” Sam tries futilely to make sense of what’s happening.

“Really eloquent there, Sammy,” Dean huffs. “You must have dropped it in the shower.”

And since Sam can only remember taking one shower earlier that night…

“Oh, shit,” he feels the blood drain out of his face. “You knew! You knew who I was and you still let me -”

“Fuck me through the mattress until I passed out?” Dean bluntly conveys. “Yeah, guess I did,” he shakes his head with an inscrutable mien. “Beats pumping you full of silver rounds like I first planned, though, doesn’t it?”

“Jesus, Dean!” Sam honest to god squeaks. “What the fuck were you thinking?”

“Oh, get off your high horse, Sam!” Dean raises his voice, irritated as hell right now. “It’s you that’s got a bit of explaining to do. Starting with how it’s possible that you’re standing right here in front of me, looking like,” - he makes an outraged wave encompassing Sam’s body - “freakin’ Godzilla, when I just finished talking to my thirteen year old brother on the phone back in Blue Earth!”

“Dean,” Sam sighs, running a hand through his hair. “There are things that are better left alone…”

“Bullshit!” his brother cuts him off. “At least have the decency not to lie to my face this time. Where did you come from?”

“I came from the future, alright?” Sam snaps, exasperated. _God, he can’t deal with this right now._

“Seriously.” Dean says, deadpan. Then, after a pause: “Well, I guess that explains the futuristic phone thingy I found in your pocket last night.”

“You went through my stuff?” Sam asks disbelievingly.

“Of course I did,” Dean counters. “What do you take me for?”

Sam doesn’t even have words to reply to that.

“So what are you doing here, in 1995?” Dean persists.

“Someone or something zapped me back in time,” Sam mutters testily. “I don’t know why, I don’t know how and frankly I don’t give a fuck anymore. I just wanna get back home.”

“So where was I when all this happened? Where was Dad?” Dean asks, taking a step forward.

“Look, Dean, I was alone when it happened, alright?” Sam carefully avoids the question. God only knows how much he’s screwed up the timeline already without having to go into a debate about Dad. “It only took me. And now I have a lead on a way to get back and I’m damn well gonna take it.”

“So you’re leaving, huh?” Dean’s voice has gone cold. “Just like that.”

Sam suddenly feels a wave of guilt wash over him. It’s like Stanford all over again, when he’d been trying so hard to get out, to run away from himself that he’d never even stopped to think what it might do to Dean. Why didn’t he pay more attention to that damn ring? Or better yet, why did he let himself get distracted and sucked into this clusterfuck of lies? He should have just walked away when Dean dropped him off back in Duluth, instead he let himself be selfish, and take what was never meant to be his. Sam knows he’s always been a little fucked in the head when it comes to his brother, but this, what he did, there’s no coming back from it. 

“Dean, I’m sorry,” he backpedals. “I didn’t mean…”

“Don’t,” Dean cuts off his rant. “Look, I get it, Sam. You have unfinished business back in the future - and I really can’t believe I just said that. But you should have trusted us, trusted _me_ to help you.”

“I do trust you, Dean,” Sam sighs. “But, like you told me yourself, I can’t let you fight my battles for me. This is my own mess, and I’m the one that has to fix it.”

Dean looks at him quietly for a moment, as if weighing and deciding his worth.

“Yeah, well, at least try not to get killed while you’re at it, alright?” he finally says, and Sam knows this is as much of a blessing he’s ever gonna get from his brother, even though he doesn’t deserve it. Dean seems to be taking it better than he thought, and Sam’s mind is left reeling at the change.

“Yeah,” Sam’s at a loss for words, suddenly. He knows that this is it, that he should just turn around and never look back - he’s done enough damage that he doesn’t even know what he’ll be going back to in 2012 - but he can’t seem to pry himself away from his brother yet again, can’t force his legs to keep running anymore.

Dean reaches out a hand to grab a fistful of Sam’s shirt and yanks him down in a startlingly hard kiss that speaks more of regret and absolution than words between them ever could. Sam gets lost in it for a second, before Dean pulls himself away and takes a step back.

“One for the road,” he mutters, with a barely there smirk, then turns to walk away. “Give my regards to future-me when you get home.”

And before Sam’s able to blink or otherwise get back to his senses, Dean has disappeared into the crowd.

 _‘Shit.’_ Sam turns his eyes towards the trinket seller’s tent, heart leaden in his chest, not even noticing he doesn’t have the ring in his palm anymore.

~

“Hello, Gabriel.”

The man turns his head around in surprise, pausing mid-chew around the toffee he’s just popped into his mouth.

 _‘Jeesh, that fake moustache doesn’t look any better the second time around.’_ Sam thinks, remembering the same face staring at him from a homemade - and frankly disturbing - sex tape not long ago, or maybe a long time from now. Time travel sure fucks with the tenses.

“You must have me confused with somebody else,” the blue eyes crinkle in a smile as fake as his Hungarian accent, and the man takes a step forward.

“Not so fast.” Sam cuts him off, and in the blink of an eye, he clicks his lighter open and lets it drop to the ground.

A second later, a sharp burst of flame snakes across the floor of the tent, cutting the shape of a circle and effectively trapping the man inside. Sam feels the sudden urge to giggle at the dumbfounded look on his face. 

“Who are you? How did you find me?” the last of the pretense is gone, the Trickster’s eyes boring daggers into his own.

“Two Nereids, the goddess of death and a chimera?” Sam shakes his head with a smile, tracing the contour of the ring of fire with casual steps. “Not really your style, I thought you were more of a ‘just desserts’ kind of guy.”

“What can I say?” the angel smirks coolly. “I’m going through a Greek phase at the moment. But you seem to have me at a disadvantage here, Mr….”

“Winchester, Sam Winchester. No doubt you’ve heard about me.”

The man does a double take.

“But that’s not…” Then he pauses and squints at Sam for a second. “Aah, now that’s interesting,” his shrewd smile returns. “A bit out of our timeline, aren’t we?”

“Exactly,” Sam nods. “And that’s where you come in.”

Ever since he’d first spotted the small jar of Holy Oil on one of Mickey’s shelves, the wheels began to turn in Sam’s head, outlining the plan. Sure, he still had no clue who’d brought him here or why, but now he had a pretty good idea of who could send him back. It was high time the Trickster started paying his dues as well, for all the torment and grief he’d caused Sam through the years. All he needed to do next was to find the bastard and convince him to help, and Sam thought that would be the trickiest part. But somehow pure dumb luck – or some twisted kind of fate – had put him on the trail sooner than he’d expected, with Lydia’s ( _Akhlys’, actually_ ) confession. From then on it had been really a piece of cake, kind of anticlimactic if he thinks about it, still, Sam isn’t about to complain.

“You’re gonna help me get back,” Sam states bluntly.

The Trickster watches him for a beat, then promptly doubles over with laughter.

“What makes you think I’m not gonna rip your spine out through your teeth when I get out of here?” he asks, highly amused. “In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t much give a fuck about Heaven and Hell’s little plans, and I certainly don’t take orders from a glorified meat puppet like you.”

Sam grits his teeth, keeping his anger in check. He’s not gonna lose face to this bastard again.

“Oh, I know you’ll take the deal, Gabriel,” he sneers. “Because I have something that you want.”

“Oh yeah?” he eyes him doubtfully. “What’s that?”

“I can tell you how and when you’re gonna die.”

The Trickster’s eyes suddenly sparkle with interest and if Sam’s not mistaken, a tiny bit of fear.

“And how would you know that?” he asks.

“I’ve seen it.” Sam responds.

The angel eyeballs him dubiously for a few seconds, then finally lets himself nod his assent.

“Alright,” he says. “You tell me everything you know and I’ll send you back to the precise moment you disappeared, I give you my word. Now do you mind putting that damn fire out? I’m starting to feel a little cramped here.”

“Not yet,” Sam shakes his head, holding his gaze. “There’s one more thing I want you to do for me, call it a token of good faith.”

“Do I look like a frickin’ genie of the lamp to you?” Gabriel taps his foot impatiently.

“I’m sure you’ve been called worse,” Sam quips amusedly. “Now, do you want me to release you, or not?”

“Fine, fine,” the Trickster throws out his hands in the air impatiently. “What do you want?”

“I want you to wipe his memories of the last 24 hours,” Sam nods towards the entrance of the tent, and just as expected, Dean steps into view from where he’d been hiding behind the tarp, a murderous expression on his face.

“Now wait just a damn minute here…”

But before he can finish, Gabriel snaps his fingers distractedly and Dean’s figure slumps unconsciously to the ground.

“Done.” he smirks, placing his hands on his hips.

“What did you do to him?” Sam growls and steps closer to the circle of fire, clenching his fists.

“What you told me to,” Gabriel looks back at him, way too pleased with the situation for Sam’s liking. “Oh, don’t get your panties in a bunch, he’s gonna be fine!”

Just then, a pair of tall buxom women, one blonde, the other a brunette, both wearing tightrope act costumes that look more like something plucked out of a wet dream, enter the tent and scoop Dean up from the ground, each holding an arm with no apparent difficulty.

“Roxanna and Hildegard here are gonna take good care of him, aren’t you, girls?”

“Yes, Loki!” the both of them smile eagerly, and then turn back to drag Dean’s limp form out of the tent.

“If you hurt him in any way…” Sam glowers at him menacingly.

“Like I said, nothing to worry about,” Gabriel interrupts. “Just a bit of a hangover and the memory of the best night in his life. He won’t remember you, and most importantly, he won’t remember _me_. Now, about that fire…” he looks pointedly at his feet.

Sam sighs, still feeling disturbed at the sight of those women’s hands on his brother, and kicks a waft of dirt from the ground, breaking the circle of burning Holy Oil and the trap. As soon as he gets free, Gabriel’s hand is suddenly around Sam’s throat, squeezing with preternatural strength around his windpipe, while flashing blue eyes look up at him in anger.

“We have a deal,” Sam grits out through the viselike grip, his hands tugging uselessly at the fingers choking him. _‘Why do these bastards always go for the neck?’_

“We do, but that doesn’t mean I enjoy being one-upped on my own turf,” the angel glares at him some more, then finally lets go. “So, talk.” 

Sam coughs once, regaining his breath, then leans forward to whisper something into the Trickster’s ear. After a minute, he straightens his back and takes in the slightly shocked expression on the angel’s face.

“Right,” the Trickster turns his head, and clears his throat a bit shakily. “Right,” he repeats with a nod.

“Your turn.” Sam fixes him with a stare.

The Trickster turns back to him, fake cheerful grin plastered again on his face.

“Well, I _would_ say it’s been a pleasure…”

“It’s really not,” Sam cuts him off, pulling his shoulders back and widening his stance.

“Catch you in a few years,” the Trickster quips, then raises the fingers of his right hand and presses them swiftly to Sam’s forehead.

A whirling sense of vertigo, like turning his skin inside out ( _‘here we go again’_ ), then Sam can feel no more.

~

He wakes up slumped against the wall of the pay-by-the-hour motel, with the mother of all headaches pounding inside his skull, and grunts at the incessant ring he can hear from inside his front jeans pocket. He grabs the mobile phone and presses at the buttons blindly to just make it _fuckin’ stop_ , while with the other hand he wipes at the trickle of blood flowing from his nose.

“Sam! What the fuck happened?” Chuck’s voice bellows in his ear with the subtlety of a hot iron poker shoving through his brain. He grunts at the pain. _‘Oh yeah, I’m back, alright,’_ he squeezes his eyes shut and leans against the cold stone of the wall.

“I’m fine, Chuck,” he grits out. “Nothing happened.”

“That doesn’t sound like nothing to me!” the tinny voice pipes up again.

“It’s taken care of,” he insists, and before the other man can reply: “I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

“Now hold up…” Chuck tries.

“I mean it, Chuck,” Sam grunts, his headache worsening. “It’s fine. And I’d really appreciate it if we kept this whole thing between us. No telling Dean, alright?”

“I wouldn’t even know what to tell him!” now the prophet just sounds annoyed.

“Bye, Chuck,” Sam says, then promptly cuts off the call.

He lets his hand drop down on the filthy tarmac he’s currently sprawled over and just takes a moment to breathe. _‘I’m back. I’m really back.’_

“Heya there, Sammy!” a cheery voice breaks through the silence.

Sam opens his eyes only to find Gabriel standing a few feet in front of him, hands in his pockets, wearing the same nondescript greenish jacket and jeans he’d last seen him in at the Elysian Fields hotel what feels like ages ago.

“Oh, right, only _Dean_ gets to call you that. My bad,” the angel smirks, looking anything but apologetic.

“So you got out,” Sam cuts to the chase, too tired to even be annoyed at the Trickster’s jibe.

“Damn right I got out,” the angel puffs out his chest. “Old Lucy might have taught me everything he knows, but I’ve picked up a few tricks of my own since then.”

He pauses for a moment, then looks back at Sam intently, all posturing gone.

“I guess I owe you a bit of thanks,” he says.

Sam waves a hand in acknowledgement, then shakes his head with a smile, watching the man in front of him through half-lidded eyes.

“So it was you all along,” he murmurs. “You sent me back.”

The idea had crossed his mind earlier in that tent, and Sam has to admit that it fits perfectly with the clues so far. It would explain how Chuck’s visions have been tampered with as well, since only a being as powerful as an archangel could affect a prophet of the Lord.

“Well, I had to ensure you’d be there at the appointed time to warn me,” Gabriel shrugs. “It’s all about self-preservation, really.”

Sam just nods at that. Nothing new here.

“What now?” he asks, after the silence has stretched for a while.

“Now, we figure out our next move,” Gabriel answers casually.

“You’re gonna help us? Just like that?” Sam deadpans, not bothering to hide his doubt.

“I made a promise to my brother back there in that room, and I stand by my words,” Gabriel straightens his shoulders with an oddly determined look. “See, you were right, Sam, I have grown fond of this world, of the people in it. And maybe I’m getting maudlin in my old age, who knows? But I’m not going to let Michael and Lucifer tear it all apart just because they can’t get over their self-righteous bullshit. So, if helping you is what it takes to put an end to this joke once and for all, then bring it! My brother isn’t gonna know what hit him.”

Sam just looks at him for a moment, taking it in.

“I guess you’re not such a self-centered prick after all, huh?” he says, shooting a grin Gabriel’s way.

“I’ve got hidden depths,” the angel mutters, looking a bit embarrassed now and honest to god shuffling his shoe against the pavement under Sam’s scrutinizing gaze.

“I’ll see you around, then,” Gabriel stuffs his hands in his pockets and turns to leave. “Oh, almost forgot!”

He spins on his heels, walks back to Sam and drops a piece of paper in his lap. _“Davenport, Iowa. ‘Serenity Valley’ Convalescent Home”_ Sam reads.

“What’s this?”

“Pestilence’s latest experiment shack,” Gabriel explains. “He’ll be changing locations in a few days, though, so I suggest you and your dumbass brother get a move on if you wanna catch him in the act.”

Sam looks down at the paper, taken aback , then mutters a confused:

“Thanks, I guess.”

But when he looks up again, the angel is gone.

Sam drags himself to his feet, holding on to the wall and valiantly pushing down the sudden urge to puke. So things are looking up for the first time in ages, they finally have a fighting chance against the Devil and maybe, just maybe, Sam will be able to walk away from this alive. It’s so much more than he had hoped for, it’s their one lucky break. So why does he feel like his heart’s been ripped right out of his chest?

Sam makes his way unsteadily inside and lets himself crash on top of the covers of his bed, not even bothering to take off his boots. He pushes his face into the pillow and squeezes his eyes shut, for the first time hoping that Lucifer will pay him a visit tonight, if only to take his mind off this gut wrenching pain that’s settled in his bones.

It’s a long time before his body gives out and he falls into a deep sleep, welcoming the malevolent smirk that greets him on the other side. 

~

He doesn’t hear the motel room door open a few hours later into the night.

He doesn’t see Dean stumble inside drunk off his feet and then collapse on his own mattress with a curse.

He doesn’t feel the glance that sweeps over him from tired bloodshot eyes, before the lashes finally drop with a sigh.

And he doesn’t see his brother’s fingers uncurl from the silver knotted Celtic ring - its contours now faded over years of being shoved inside pockets, out of sight - when Dean finally falls asleep.

 

FIN

**Author's Note:**

>  **Note:** _Whew! So this is it, folks, the end of the road. I’m almost sad to see it come to a conclusion, even though I left the ending open, so that maybe someday I’ll write a sequel or a timestamp, there are so many possibilities for this story to grow still. This was my first SPN fanfic and the first thing I’ve ever posted online, and I wouldn’t have been able to finish it without the constant support of those who have commented and encouraged me along the way._  
>  _The title of this fic was taken from Marilyn Manson’s song, “Man That You Fear”. I’ve done all the beta-ing myself, so all remaining mistakes are mine. I’ve also made a lot of references to Greek mythology and lore, trying to keep the original sources as authentic as possible, although I’ve tweaked the facts sometimes to fit the plotline better. I’ve never been to Minnesotta before, so the places I’ve described are the combined result of Google Maps and my own imagination, and I hope I haven’t inadvertently insulted someone who actually lives there by using these particular town names._  
>  _This has been a great experience for me as a writer and I thank you all for bearing with me until the end. If you have time, I’d really like to know what you think, so drop me a line and let me know, your comments are always welcome!_
> 
>  
> 
>  **Note 2:** _I’ve taken the quote on the pendant from an ancient Greek text: Bacchylides, Fragment 7 (trans. Campbell, Vol. Greek Lyric IV) (Greek lyric C5th B.C.) : "Radiant daughter [Hemera (Day)] of Khronos [Time] and Nyx [Night], you the sixteenth day of the fiftieth month."_
> 
>  
> 
> **Note 3:**  
>  _Arcadia is a regional unit of Greece, dating back to ancient history. In Greek mythology, it was the home of the god Pan. In European Renaissance arts, Arcadia was celebrated as an unspoiled, harmonious wilderness._


End file.
